EXACTLY! Thanks for further illustrating the point. He was on the verge of inciting a riot, he looked like an a*s anyway. If he wanted a serious answer, he wasn't going to be taken seriously by anyone.

 

Sir I am not playing a competition game with you and yes I do understand that cops die I have folded a few flags for families in my time but the first thing on everyones mind is self preservation right or wrong no one wants to die. Let me ask you this if you was there as a soldier you would not have suppressed him and stop the situation from escalating?

 

Police brutality is not awesome, but this topic and discussion ROCK!!

Hee Hee love debates!

 

Absolutely not. Besides the fact that the military is not authorized to enforce domestic law except under unusual circumstances, silencing him would go against against everything the military is intended to uphold--specifically, the United States Constitution and all its' amendments.

And if I'd been there, then as a private citizen I would have assisted him in his exercise of free speech. If that meant helping him resist oppression by the police and my subsequent arrest, then so be it.

 

He didn't impede any other students, because there weren't going to be any other students asking questions, he was the last. I watched it and rewatched it, everything seemed fine until the police grabbed him

 

But Rick Flair, wouldn't you mess up your hair?

Ha just kidding bro.

 

I belive he meant if you were an officer, given your military backround...how would you have supressed him/dealt with the situation>... and by helping him resist opression, by what means...physical assualt of a polce officer??

 

Shit, can't believe I've read this entire thread, but its fairly obvious from numerous reports that cops are becoming taser happy (esp campus police) these days. I understand the use of a taser in most situations, but when the police out number a guy 5 to 1, and its fairly obvious that he isn't a deadly threat then appropiate action should be taken. It wasn't in this instance.

Remember that video where the college student was taser in his library like five or six times for absolutely nothing?

And of course, someone is gonna start being disorderly when their cut-off suddenly in the middle of a question, and the police surround him.

 

Then why were they cutting him off? If the event organizers, sponsors, whoever is in charge, are cutting you off and asking you to step down, then that's what you do. I understand "fight the power" and all that, but as Prowl said, when you violate rules you violate rules, and this guy clearly was. Whether he was the last or not, he was clearly impeding the event.

Plus, after his mic was cut, the campus police clearly were trying to escort him "off stage", as it were, and he resisted. From that point it escalated due to his actions. Had he merely walked off when they asked him to, he could have later filed a complaint or hugged a tree or whatever.

 

Nothing needed dealing with. I would have let him ask his questions, Senator Kerry would have answered them, and that would have been it.

 

He was tasered when the community service officers preformed a random student ID check, when he did not show his ID he was escorted from the building during which time he told the officer "don't touch me."

Then they tasered him.

He was charged with "obstruction/delay of a peace officer in the performance of duty."

I think the taser was going overboard there as well.

 

"helping" him resist opression.....after the "action" started

 

Yeah, It sure was a student id check. He was a student though I think, he just didn't have his ID on him (I may be wrong about this). I just remember the video where he's getting taser multiple times through the library, instead of simply cuffing him after the first tase.

 

Now that is taking it too far.

 

Zapping him with the taser was completely uncalled for. All he did was ask why he was being arrested. What happened to freedom of speech?

 

That's not how it works. You'd only be assisting him in being disorderly and any judge and jury would see it that way. It's the same reason why you can't yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater when there is no fire or why you can be sued for libel. The moment he started yelling and thrashing around it stopped being about his right to be heard and started being a threat to the people in that room.

I admit it wasn't a very smart thing for the event operators to cut him off, that only made him angrier and there is a legitimate case there for his free speech being violated. But that anger should have been directed at the person who cut him off, not at the police who were only there to keep the peace.

There was a moment there before he was carted off when he could have demanded to see a manager, or just sat down and let Kerry answer, but instead he became agitated, making him a threat.

Even after that he could have gone quietly and then exercised his right to due process and redress of grievances by charging the officers with false arrest or seeing to it that the people who cut him off lost their jobs.

The right to free speech is NOT ABSOLUTE in this country, at least not in the heat of the moment, nor does it need to be when our society offers proper channels for redress. This guy ignored those channels and broke the law.

 

I didnt hear anyone say somethin' like...

"just chill out man" "simma down naw"

 

I don't really see much of a problem here.

The guy was there to rant and cause a scene, period. If he actually wanted to contribute and have his questions (which certainly seemed valid) answered, he would have allowed Kerry the time to answer. He did not. He ranted. The mic was cut and police were asked to escort him out. He ranted on the police, then actively resisted them. The police only escalated their physicality to meet his, which is what they are supposed to do.

The fact that Kerry wanted to answer his questions is completely immaterial.

Should the police have used a taser on him? Perhaps not, but certainly everything else they did was perfectly fine. They did not start the situation. They tried to simply ask him to leave and he ranted and raved. It's all on that college idiot.

 

First off I see a man breaking the rules set forth for the event, then running around around swinging his arms, after he was to stop. From the video, it look like he was either drunk or high and breaking away from the officers.

They get a hold of him again and he's still swinging his arms and refusing to put them behind his back. It gets to the point where two of the officers get him to the ground, each trying to get his arms down to be hand cuffed while two other officers each hold a leg to prevent him kicking. The last two officers were trying to hand cuff him and they were warning him that he would be tasered if he didn't comply. He still resisted and they tasered him once, the officers showed plenty of restraint to me.