On 11/17/06, Marty Daniels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > My question is... > > How in the heck was this guy supposed to stand up after being tazered > for as long as he was? > > When I have seen tazers used they have not been held to the person for > any length of time but they have been quick shocks that essentially > floor the person. How can someone stand after that? > > In fairness, we do not see what brought the police to the library. > Someone there had to believe his activity was suspect before the cops > arrived unless the police are being SUPER AGGRESSIVE and HUNTING in > university libraries now.
In all fairness nothing... there was nothing fair about it. The only procedural excuse is if the student poses a direct physical threat such as being armed with a knife or gun or in the processes of throwing punches. He never threatened violence, acording to all reports he was attempting to leave as instructed when they tassered him, and he was tassered 4 times. There's nothing fair about it. He was attacked viciously. You could say he was yelling, disturbing the peace... maybe the cops and security "felt" he was a threat, you could even try to justify why 2 cops and 2 security guards felt a student working at a computer terminal with a backpack felt he was a threat. The bottom line is though, absolutely NONE of the circumstances warrant the use of a tasser once let alone four freaking times. I assume we've all been in a library, or someplace where ID was required and realized we didn't have it on us. Try to imagine being first told you had to leave the library because you didn't have an ID. Try to imagine being threatened by 2 cops and 2 security people, physically detained as you tried to leave, and then you yourself tassered. I don't even care if the dude told the security gaurds to go f*ck themselves. Nothing he said short of "I've got a gun in my bag and I'm going to pull it out and shoot you" would have warranted being tassered. It freaking boils my blood. However, I'm really glad Jay posted this. I had 4 people IM me about it yesterday after they saw it on Boinboing.net. What this clearly shows is a new power of balance, and more importantly a way form of making sense out of the world. A video like this is no longer interpreted or even ignored by the nightly news. It's no longer "framed"... we're no longer told told what to think of it or worse... it just thrown out there without the facts we need to process the information and make sense out of it... as so many advertising and so much shock news... such information that is not knowlege, not useful, and often an attack on our mental environoment. In this new information environment, or indeed this new economy of information... as we turn off the TV's and the radios, our brains are increasingly not poked and proded and fed stimuli that often has no bearing, no meaning, and no useful knowlege in our daily lives. In this new information economy where we are not captive audiences and our 'eyeballs" are no longer sold to the highest bidder... where there are more abundant sources of information, more information competition, where we have an explosion of choice often much of it completely ametuer and devoid of advertising like this students cameraphone video. We can take back control, not only of the environoment around us... not only the voices and ideas that are pushed in front of our eyeballs, but to regain the opportunity to think clear thoughts, to be undestracted by unnecissary stimulli. I call it "mental environmentalism" btw, but that is not the point. The point is be because we have that clarity of thought and vision aside from distraction, we can turn that attention to other interests and passions as WE see fit. This is not the "fragmentation" of the marketplace as those editors and advertisors see it from the top down. It is the masses waking up from a long enchanment with the silver screen and it's little brother. As we become empowered with our new control over the media and ability to participate in it the entire way the world functions is changing. In my opinion becoming vastly more human. It's not just that someone had a cameraphone handy to shoot some video of this incident. It's that the world can now read the reports, watch the video and most importantly of all discuss it, proccess it, make up their own minds as we are doing here. Or... if it doesn't concern them, they may ignore it to. BTW, this also doesn't mean everything is happy happy joy joy in the world of new media. There are major new concerns privacy concerns, subjectivity... and disturbing trends such as "upskirt" photography and videography and "happy slapping". Indeed Josh Wolf's case is a PRIME example of one of the potential evils of a world where video cameras are everywhere. To borrow a term from Niel Stephonson's snowcrash... in a world where we are all "gargoyles", all shooting video and documenting not only our lives and the world around us, what right do we have to be secure in our own media possessions. Josh Wolf could be compelled to testify and he did... but the police wanted ALL his footage to go over at their leisure for matters completely aside from the actual case in front of them. The threat clearly stated is this... in this future are we all just surviellance tools of big brother? Certainly our right to retain property of our own media is going to become increasingly important. Josh Wolf commited no crime, and yet they practiced a seisure of his property. Seizing all his footage when he has commited no crime is quite akin I would argue to getting a warrant to search his entire house and all his worldly possesions... and using that warrant not just on the case for which the warrant was issued but for any case or material that should arise. I'm not even saying I think Josh Wolf is right or wrong, but at the very least I have tremendous respect and admiration for him for sticking to what he believes in. His issue will become an increasingly important issue as we move into this era where everyone has camera's everywhere and have captured their entire lives and those of their friends on film. So, cheers to Josh Wolf and cheers to the girl who had the presence of mind to grabe her videophone. Peace, -Mike mmeiser.com/blog mefeedia.com > My stomach is turning...this is sad to see. > > > > > --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, "Gena" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > I just saw the video. I'm just sick about this. There had to be a > > better way to handle this. Most California colleges and universities > > have a policy that allows the public to use libraries up to a certain > > cut off time. There are some that also allow computer room access like > > UCLA. > > > > If he was not a student then he should not have been in the building. > > But my god a tazer is a gun, an electronic gun. If they didn't have > > the tazer would they have shot him three+ times with bullets? > > > > I hate cell phones but I'm starting to warm up to cell phones with > > video capabilities. Document every dadgum thing and then some. > > > > One last thing. Be *real* careful about shooting around LAPD or any > > PD. For your own safety, be discreet and when it is possible to do so > > leave and upload the tape. > > > > My heart is filled with sorrow. > > > > Gena > > > > > > --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, "Jay dedman" <jay.dedman@> wrote: > > > > > > Some of you may have read how a recent California student was tasered > > > by security guards > > > lets see how the story plays out. > > > > > > Text: > > > http://www.nysun.com/article/43718 > > > "UCLA Officer Shocks Student With Stun Gun > > > A UCLA police officer shocked a student with a stun gun at a campus > > > library after he refused repeated requests to show student > > > identification and wouldn't leave, police said. The student, Mostafa > > > Tabatabainejad, was shocked Tuesday at about 11 p.m. as police did a > > > routine check of student IDs at the University of California , Los > > > Angeles Powell Library computer lab." > > > > > > > > > Video: > > > http://youtube.com/watch?v=m3GstYOIc0I > > > > > > Now.. text is extremely important because it allows us to discuss the > > > depth and subtleties of a story. > > > > > > But just watch the video taken by a fellow student using her > > > videophone and uploaded to the web. > > > The video shows the real drama behind the incident that usually gets > > > washed over in text stories. > > > > > > Jay > > > > > > > > > -- > > > Me ----> http://www.momentshowing.net > > > My Book ---->http://tinyurl.com/e6cap > > > SF community ----> http://RyanIsHungry.com > > > Community Capitalism----> http://HaveMoneyWillVlog.com > > > Educate ----> http://node101.org > > > Collaboration ----> http://spinxpress.com > > > Call now to activate----> 917 371 6790 > > > > > > > > > > > > Yahoo! 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