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Don't ask John Kerry questions...or else!

Bill O'Reilly is selling "Don't Taze Me Bro!" bumper stickers, which I think is hilarious! LOL :-)) :-))
 
He was probably just trying to get on youtube like that guy who drove around baiting cops with the camera in his car.

xvart.
 
I'm not convinced this guy was intentionally disruptive, but their are some reports that say that he already had a reputation around campus for being a troublemaker. I don't think the cops should have started grabbing him when they did - particularly because Kerry, the person everyone was there to see, was asking the cops to stop and allow him to answer the kid's question. But the way he was resisting arrest like that, he's lucky to have only been tasered. If cops ask you to stop what you're doing and cooperate, it's usually a good idea to do so, provided it doesn't put you in harm's way. This guy was in an auditorium full of witnesses and recording devices; I can't see any good reason for him to have behaved that way.
~Joe
 
This guy was in an auditorium full of witnesses and recording devices; I can't see any good reason for him to have behaved that way.
~Joe

To get his 15 minutes of fame on youtube.

xvart.
 
Force, brutality (though like stated getting tazerd than getting hit with a nite stick or something) is the reason we cnat find ANY thing out about what goes on in our government any more. Cant even ask a question with out getting a slap on the hand.
 
being a person whos been tazed by a personal device on a bet, i can tell you 2 things about it- it is intensely painful, and would any battle pretty quickly.

what bugs me here is how people jump right onto excessive force and "brutality". yeah, they probably didn't need to taze the guy, but i can guarantee you that he felt good as new 30 seconds after the tazering was done. thats the beauty of tazering, you recover nearly instantaneously. the thought of being shocked with 10k volts seems daunting but if it were me, i'd take the tazer any day over pepper spray, night sticks, rubber bullets, etc.

i'm not really a huge police supporter, but the guy should have known to settle down when the police stepped in. first sign to settle down? being carried out by an officer. second sign? being restrained by 2 officers. 3rd sign? 4 officers pinning you to the ground. i mean really, did he think they were just going to be like "oh hey guys maybe he has a point... lets just let him go"
 
As someone who's been in the clutches of "the man" before I can say I don't like the idea of cops using tasers at all. They say they're non lethal but they have been used to kill ("subdue" the cops say). They are especilly dangerous t persons with heart problems. I recall one news article where cops held a guy down by his arms and legs and tasered him repeatedly in the heart. That man is now off singing with the angels. The cops are still eating sunday dinner with their ugly little families. Give me a good ol' nightstick under the throat and repeated macings by different cops after being put in the squad car at an Earth Day rally anytime - I can live through that (and I did)!

As far as this guy goes, not sure what he was getting at as I can't make out his question on the news clip. Was he just some pro-bush nut rallying against the non-existng Kerry 08 campaign or...? Who decided he should be taken down if Kerry was gonna answer his question? The college or the pigs?
 
The cops were requested, by the organizers of the forum, to remove him. They did what was necessary to accomplish that with no injury to the man.
My advice is to never argue with an armed person. He did...he lost.
 
  • #10
IIRC Kerry was telling them to It's OK and that he can answer his questions but the pigs chose to taze the dude.

IMO, the dude was being a total jerk and had no class at all for being so over the top and disruptive, but he didn't deserve to be tazed especially when he was screaming "Don't taze be bro!"
 
  • #12
The cops who abused their authority. Duh :)

I can picture literal pigs tazing someone now lmao.
 
  • #13
If I were that guy I probably would have just shut up, after the cops told me to be quiet (or not be so disruptive in the first place).
Still, I don't think it is EVER right to injure or taser someone becuase they ask questions. The "pigs" seemed to resort to violence before telling the man what he was doing wrong, which is bad.

Whats hillarious is how when the Cops drag that guy out, the audience is just staring at John Kerry like nothing is going on.:-))
 
  • #14

Um whatever . If its the tazer, they say use the nightstick. If its the nightstick, they say use the handcuffs. If its a beanbag/rubber bullet, use the tazer. Cops cant win.


The cops are still eating sunday dinner with their ugly little families

Please explain how their families come into play here, and why their families are so ugly?
Our forum members in the force might like an explanation on that.
 
  • #15
I don't think he got tased for asking a question... I'm pretty sure it was for resisting arrest. I've watched the footage several times now, and as far as I can tell the order of events was something like this:

- Hyperactive, self-righteous college student launches a nonstop barrage of accusitory, hostile questions at Kerry.
- Kerry attempts to answer; college student continues to talk over him.
- Organizers request that college student allow Kerry to speak; student does not comply.
- Police at the event are asked to remove the student and attempt to do so. On a side note, at this point Kerry is asking the police to wait and allow the student to hear Kerry's answer.
- Student ignores police, and becomes physically uncooperative. If I'm not mistaken, this is about the time that most law enforcement and security types are taught (and legally allowed) to physically restrain someone and, in this case, escort them off the premises.
- When the student begins resisting enough that he can't be restrained without risking his own safety or those of the officers or the surrounding spectators, the officers inform him that he's being placed under arrest. (A reasonable move in my book; it's definitely disorderly conduct by now.)
- Student asks, "Why am I under arrest?" "What did I do?" etc. The cops don't seem to answer, which is out of line, but the student also doesn't seem to be paying attention to them, so it probably wouldn't have helped if they had answered him anyways. (Or perhaps they did explain, and it simply isn't audible over the student's shouting. In any case, the answer is fairly obvious; disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, disrupting a public event...) This is the type of thing to fight in court, not while you're being arrested. If he'd cooperated at this point, some of those cops might've been recieving disciplinary action by now.
- More cops join in to restrain the student; at this point I'd say the force is becoming excessive. They probably could have let the kid go, surrounded him, and let him make a fool of himself until he got tired of ranting. Once he quiets down, run down his charges and take him out. However, the cops were asked to remove him from the building so that the Q&A can continue with an important guest who has limited time, so I still don't think they were egregiously out of line.
- Student continues to resist, and the way he's flailing, if he'd made contact with an officer, the charges could've gone up to assaulting an officer. They then warn him that he's about to be tasered. We all know what happens next.

I think Nepenthusiast makes a good point that the audience pretty much ignored the situation after the cops grabbed the student. That's a big indicator; if the cops were out of line, don't you think at least a few people in the audience might've protested and gotten involved? It seems obvious to me that the kid had worn out his welcome.
While I normally have a healthy anti-authoritative attitude towards cops, this is the kind of thing I think they're invaluable for. As far as I'm concerned, this is hardly even abuse of authority; certainly not compared to the police riots I've seen in Portland and Seattle. I've had cops in Portland (not actually Portland PD, but an outlying suburb) drive onto my private property and try to escort me from my driveway back into my house for being _outside_ past curfew (which is supposed to apply only to public property in that municipality.) That was a situation that really got ugly, on several occasions. This guy had a chance to do things peacably, and he belligerently wasted it. I have no sympathy for him; he got way better than most folks do.
~Joe
 
  • #16
He obviously deserved to be removed at this point but I don't believe the tazering was appropriate. Look how many cops were on top of him, it wasn't like he was some big genetic freak :). You're telling me all those cops on him couldn't get the cuffs on?

Here's an interesting POV (BEWARE some bad language):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IATPoHdpak0

Looks like he was bullied before he was even able to ask his question. Also look at 3:17 and 3:18 when one of the cops says "get back". He looks like he's laughing!
 
  • #17
I'm not convinced that he was even being arrested (at first). I think they were trying to escort him out as being disruptive. I've said it twice now and I'll say it again: the world we live in is always being videotaped. Of course this guy is going to act like that because since he believes he is being unjustly treated (which I don't believe he was) he acted out because he knew the world would see. After his continued outbursts is when more force was applied. I'm sure it's going to be a mess for the police there; but only because of PR. If there were no videotapes in that room this would not be such a PR nightmare. It's on youtube, and everyone is going to see it.

He's got his 15 minutes of fame fighting against "injustice."

xvart.
 
  • #18
I think that deciding what went on exactely is beyond the scope of youtube. I think Seedjar is prbably right about what went on. I still don't think they had to Tazer him though.
 
  • #19
I completely agree with Joe's assessment of what happened. I'm just saying that I think his actions were motivated in part by knowing that he was making a scene. I refuse to believe that he was that passionate about his questions; but maybe I am just ignorant or skeptical of youth that conduct themselves in such a manner.

I also don't believe he intended to listen to the answer to his question about why he was being arrested. He just kept resisting and yelling. I think if you really wanted to know why you were being arrested you would actually conduct yourself in a manner that would allow yourself to listen; which he clearly wasn't.

I think he got exactly what he deserved. I hope his student peers tell him he is an idiot and don't buy into all the publicity he's getting about "injustice." I almost guarantee that he is sitting around at a bar laughing about all this and getting a lot of attention.

xvart.
 
  • #20
The student was doing a common prectice of filibuster on Kerry. Can't you guys see that? The cops did use excesive force. I have seen the footage too. You had 4 cops against one scrawny college kid. He could have easily been held down with a knee in the back and handcuffed. Even with one cop on each limp he could have been subdued without the use of a tazer. I do think it is an extreem use of force. Tazers are considered "non lethal", but they can kill Think about if that kid had a pacemaker. Unlikely, but not impossible. Many (not all) cops think they are above the law and have the "right" to do as they wish to uphold the law. Tazers are ment to be a last resort just like pulling your gun, but instead cops choose to pull them out and use them at will because of their "non-lethal" status. Do you think there is a reason many departments do not allow tazers now? Had the cops cuffed the guy like they should have he would not have been flayling his arms. It is also how you aproach someone as well that makes them act a certain way. Granted the Student did not approach the situation with very much couth, but the cops didn't either. there are techniques to subdue someone with your bare hands. Especialy if you out number the guy 4 to 1. Just because youhave a tazer does not mean you have the right to use it at the drop of a dine. If it takes a little longer to subdue the situation then so be it, but it can be done without using a tazer. It has been that way in the bast. A tazer was ment to take the place of killing someone with a gun not as an every day means to shut someone up.

Another way to prove my point the day after this story there is a dash cam showing a LEO repeatedly tazering a lady. He claimed the tazer was malfuntioning, but if that was the case he should have pulled the leads instead of letting it repeatedly fire on her. There are other means of subueing people without the risk of killing them.
 
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