great photos...thanks for covering this!

Thanks for the updates and photos. Much love and respect

I remember my days at UCLA, the protests, the nights we took over the Administration Building, when protests meant something.

This is a welcome flashback to those days. This was a horrendous incident. I'm so proud of the protesters. They're speaking for so many of us who feel like screaming right now.

What is the point of lumping military recruiters in the the UCLA police? I do not get the connection at all. Recruiters are not a symbol of authority, nor do they have any power to arrest or detain college students... they have no authority. Seems like a rather ridiculous point to make.
I suppose the police may be more of a bother than they are really worth. I would imagine they spend more of their time breaking up a good party than doing much that defends the students... that about right?
Thanks for your time. PC.

I have a samsun t309 which gives over 60 seconds of video per clip i think.

Mad love to all the people who showed up to support freedom and oppose fascism.

I think everyone is blowing this incident out of proportion, especially those who are playing the race card. Civil Rights violation? Yeah Right! My understanding is the student refused to show his ID, didn't comply with the officers, and tried to incite the crowd. Not to mention yelling and screaming like a little bitch. The officers were just doing their job and removing a disruptive student from the library who was apparently not complying with a simple request to show ID. The Taser was necessary to make him comply with his obvious refusal to comply with the officers.

Issac,

Do you think it is okay to torture people that are handcuffs just because they are being a jerk, if that is your point.

If so, seeing you are more than willing to commit that particular crime, are you volunteering for a little unicop justice?

Isaac (post #12),

First off, I'd like to see you try and walk after getting tasered repeatedly.

Secondly, the "Taser" is not to be used against people as a tool to force obediance. It is to be used as a "less than lethal" force against VIOLENT assailants.

This "kid" was a man that didn't have his ID and was exercising his rights of Civil Disobediance.

Tell me, do you think it would be okay if Ghandi had been tasered for practicing Civil Disobediance? Or Martin Luthor King Jr.?

This weapon is a serious threat to our civil liberties. Abuse of it must not be tolerated, even by submissive types like yourself.

Oh great, Isaac's and the trolls are back. The thing about the authoritarian's argument, that the police should be obeyed and the law upheld, ergo brutal methods are justified overlooks an important point. The police and authorities are not above the law either. They swear to serve and protect the public, and their actions are subject to their own laws of conduct and proceedure. They are not free to break their own laws in a way that would compromise their mission to serve and protect. Real life police work isn't like in the movies.

Cops on campuses everywhere need to learn immediately that students pay a lot of money to attend these schools, and but for the students these guys would be rent-a-cops at Walmart instead of at the much more pleasant environment of a college or university. The "random" ID check at a library is not something that passes the smell test. Tasing a student who is already on the ground is cowardly and sadistic. The "cop" who threatened to tase the student bystander very obviously needs to be fired at once.

I am a college professor, and I have spent most of my life on campuses. Things skip a generation or so, but I am glad to see that the latest group of students have a more developed sense of rebellion.

It does my heart good.

1. The student was leaving. The cop insisted on putting his hands on him, to hold him and control him as he left. That was unnecessary. The student told the cop to take his hands off him. In anger, the cops used the Taser to enforce obedience. The cops involved need to be identified and fired.

2. Students who asked for the cops' names and badge numbers were threatened with the Taser also. Asking a question is not a violent threatening act. Again, those cops should be identified and fired.

3. UCLA Campus police need to redefine their relationship with the students.

It's illegal to require that people in the US carry their ID on them at all times and produce it whenever the police demand to see it. This is not an obscure point; it's one of the founding principles of freedom in the United States.

Unless you are arrested, you do not have to identify yourself to the police. This is one of the differences between the US and a police state, even if it only remains on paper.

The function of the police (when there is no crime taking place) is the maintenance of order. In what sense can their actions be said to have contributed to this?

Fletch, gimme a break. Comparing this kid to Ghandi or MLK is quite a stretch. To the others saying he deserved a tasing because he was being a prick you're just as out of line. Here's the thing about this great nation... there's nothing illegal about being a prick to cops.

Did they have every right to escort him out. Yes. Physically if he doesn't comply. Yes. But what would they have done w/o tasers? They would have just dragged his arse out of there. There's no possible justification for the taser in that situation where the student was not violent. That wasn't exactly the brink of a riot. It only became that way because of the actions by the police, not the student.

There is a really pointless mix fact, opinion and outright damn stupidity on this board regarding what happened here. Let’s try to sort this out for a sec.

First of all, if you are asked by a member of law enforcement for some form of ID you are required to provide it if you are on private or restricted public property such as a university library. There is no right to withhold ID under such circumstances from my understanding of the law.

Second, there is some dispute over the course of events before what we can see in the video. There is however security video taken by the school that has not been released as virtually the entire campus is covered in cameras. This video is key to understanding part of the lead up to the incident.

Third, there are reports that the student was walking away from the police and leaving the building, reports of obnoxious behavior by the student, and other reports that say that he was working on a computer that cannot be accessed by anyone without a valid student ID. Even his race has been brought up in these discussions as the main part of the story. And little of this really matters.

What can be determined for certain is only available from the only evidence we have, the video. It is clear that at least some of the taser use was done AFTER the student was handcuffed. The student is on the floor, in the doorway, handcuffed and dragged up by 2 officers and tasered. This man is in custody, taking no offensive action and the officers applied a taser. Why? Because he was "refusing to stand up"? For those unfamiliar with tasers, it is not uncommon for a person tasered to be totally incapacitated and unable to stand. These officers could have simply carried the man out, but instead it appears that they decided to taser the student. Why? Too lazy to carry him? Wanted to force compliance through the use of pain? As a way of showing who was boss? Pure sadism?

Then one officer is clearly threatening another student for doing nothing more than exercising his right to ask the officer for his name. The officer has no legal right not to provide this information to any citizen who requests it in most jurisdictions, but perhaps UCLA officers are not required to under CA laws. Either way this threat was utterly unnecessary and shows thuggish behavior on the part of the officer in question.

Some on this board have said that he deserved it because he did not show the officers his ID. Would this have been different if he had simply been punched by the cops into submission? How about being beaten by clubs? Perhaps he could have been kneecapped with a pistol shot? And let me say again, I’m only talking about the actions we can see on the video after the student was in cuffs. Just because the taser tends not to leave a mark, does not change the fact that it is a use of force. This is a case of a person being punished without trial with physical force for what is at worst a minor legal infraction of not showing ID and possibly mouthing off. Once the student was in custody there was no further need for the use of physical force. If this justifiable to any of you, think about what the police can be authorized to do under that theory if you should be accused of speeding or passing a red light, 2 illegal actions that both endanger human life far more than a student’s bad attitude.

Cops use tasers nowdays when they don't feel like subduing someone physically.

Why bother getting dirty or tired when you can just push a button?

It's been said already but it's worth saying again:

Using intense pain to force compliance is not appropriate if there is no danger to the officers.

People who support this watch too many movies.

It's so clearly abuse. It takes 4 full grown professional males and 5 tazerings to subdue a 22 yearold handuffed boy? I feel so much safer now. Thanks.

It's sickening that people can defend this. Ever given a little lip to a fat old traffic cop who gives you a speeding ticket for going 3 mph over the limit? Been tasered for it?

Jesus Christ this country is going down the tubes.

I cannot believe this happened and people just accept it. Even if the kid was a child molesting rapist neo-Nazi who had just ran around the library screaming for an hour, ripping up everyone's homework assignments and pissing into the garbage cans, he shouldn't be cuffed and tortured with a god damn taser for several minutes. That's just not how America is. Or was.

I know it was probably a very shocking event to witness, and that two wrongs do not make a right, and that violence begets more violence and all that... but I would like to think that if I had been there, I would have thrown a chair through a window or tossed a computer monitor or something and started a riot, to make sure those cops didn't get a chance to drag the kid out of there scot free.

I don't have a tv anymore. Has this story gotten much play? Any local or national outlets cover the protest?

Cops that do this stuff need to be punished within the full limit of the law. 9 out of 10 cops are good guys and I have a few friends that are cops. But even they say that guys like this need to get busted down because they give cops a bad name and make their jobs harder. The kid was already under control when they tased him repeatedly then tell him after he is down to get up or he will get tased again. The whole point of tasing someone is to put them down, not make them get up and walk around. They had a major brain fart. These cops are idiots and deserve to be fired and thrown in jail for a while to think about it and be make an example. End of story.

I can understand a little the reaction of those who are scared that allowing even a little resistance will lead to the total undermining of authority.

There can be no other reason for excusing this.

Those officers obviously had a Cartman moment.

Smite tyrants wherever ye find them .... it's an obligation doncha know.

that guy is a douche and the police shouldn't have exerted that much force. both sides handled it with a sheer level of stupidity.