Is anybody seriously upset about this? If you actually watch the whole video it is obvious that this kid not only deserved to be tasered (he was pushing people, screaming, disturbing the peace and resisting arrest) but that he orchestrated this event to generate traffic for his site.

The police use tasers to control those who violently resist. That's the entire reason they were given the tool. I will never understand the popular mentality of siding with criminals against cops.

Yes, everyone that's wrestled to the ground and tasered becomes a "criminal." You seem to have some twisted "guilty until proven innocent" mentality. If anyone is arrested they become a criminal and should be arrested. Round and round we go.

The abuses of police with tasers has been escalating over the past few weeks now.

http://www.google.com/search?q=police+brutality+tasers&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Be you liberal or conservative, this is a scary, and outright unacceptable turn of events.

Taser guns, like all guns, must always be used as a measure of last resort. While it is true that this particular protester was causing a disturbance, I fail to see why the police did not simply escort him away without the use of such brutality.

Keep in mind: taser guns have been known to cause death and serious injury. Do not allow their "non-lethal" branding to allow you to encourage the violation of civil rights.

Furthermore, events such as these are the primary reason why I own guns, and support the NRA, to the lament of many OGM readers.

Zeus help me, I just said something incredibly dumb:

"I fail to see why the police did not simply escort him away without the use of such brutality."

Yes I do: this gentleman was engaged in non-violent political speech, and had every right to be loud, rude and forceful in addressing Mr. Kerry.

Witness the slippery slope in action: this is becoming so commonplace that I almost bought into this pro-tyranny line of thinking.

Zounds!

I think the tasering (if that is even a word) was completely unjustified. Seriously, if 4 cops cannot subdue a guy who is already on the ground, then those cops are incompetent.

On another note, I think escorting him out of the building MAY be justifiable. But I saw no reason initially for them to do anything at all. He was an citizen asking legitimate questions, albeit in a heated and aggressive manner, but so what? They are just words. He wasn't being physically aggressive towards Sen. Kerry at all.

Did any of you see the subsequent O'Reilly factor that had on 2 lawyers discussing this issue?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg9qTD6Z7zE

One of them actually said the cops were justified in tasering him because they didn't know if he possibly had a weapon in his pockets.

Doesn't that strike anyone as crazy? Anyone might have a weapon on them at any time. Does that mean the cops have the right to taser them? Or even search them? That lawyer needs to go back to law school.

I think the tasering (if that is even a word) was completely unjustified. Seriously, if 4 cops cannot subdue a guy who is already on the ground, then those cops are incompetent.

This type of mentality simply illustrates that you operate from an anti-cop position.

Cops can subdue someone who is on the ground without tasering them. But if they are struggling and the cops have to use force then someone might be hurt. Despite your claims to the contrary, it is not an easy thing to subdue a struggling person. It is usually in such struggles where people are injured, or a criminal grabs a cop's gun.

Nobody disputes the facts here. The man was asked repeatedly to leave the podium and allow others to speak. He refused and shoved some of those other people away, screaming and yelling. The cops ordered him to the ground. He refused, screaming and yelling. They attempted to take him to the ground with 'strongarm force' and he resisted, kicking, screaming, pushing, punching, and yelling. So they tasered him.

This is proper escalation of force. It's the reason the police were given tasers: to subdue struggling criminals (and yes, disturbing the peace and resisting arrest are crimes). Your anti-authority stance is nothing but childish oppositional defiance.

Don't tase me, bro.

I would wager TeaForTheTillerman has never been the victim of police brutality or unlawful arrest.

I wish this upon you, not out of a sense of malice, but the belief it would cause a greater empathy towards my position.

Norm

Thanks so much for posting the cartoon from Mr Fish.

He is a Tremendous talent. Great illustration and fantastic biting satire.

I would like to put a link to his own site where people can check out more of his work. Hopefully that is not too blatant a plug for a fine artist. If so, i apologize: http://laweekly.blogs.com/fish/

peace box

Well, I feel a bit torn about this. Kerry told the cops that it was okay and he would answer the question, I think at that point it's out of his hands as to what the police decides to do. If there was any sort of wrongdoing, it would fall on the police, but he was also asked to leave peacefully, it looks like multiple times, and then he resisted an escort out and of course he was definitely disturbing the peace.

I would say that I am fairly anti-authoritarian, but only because those in authority so often abuse it. I am not necessarily anti-cop. I have several relatives that are on the police force and they are excellent officers and citizens. But there is no denying that there are cops out there that became cops so they could wield power over another (I'm not saying that was the case here, I'm just saying being wary of cops is justified).

In addition, having studied martial arts for many years (and several styles) I know what it takes to take down an individual. Even one resisting in the way this guy was. Four trained police officers should have been able to handle it without a taser.

I agree he was resisting, but it's still debatable that they should have done anything in the first place. Maybe I would feel differently if I had actually been there.

I would wager TeaForTheTillerman has never been the victim of police brutality or unlawful arrest.

Brutality, no. There are rarely such things as 'unlawful arrest' so I think you mean 'wrongful arrest', and yes I have been a victim of that. Know what I did? Complied with the officer's instructions, and I was released.

You're essentially arguing that since you claim to have been a victim of 'police brutality', you are against the cops ever using force. That's simply nonsensical. In addition to the fact that I cannot either prove or deny any claim made by you on this matter - although everybody thinks they're innocent no matter what they were doing - you have to realize that subjectively evaluating every situation as if the criminal is innocent and the cops guilty is simply flawed reasoning.

There is a valid point to be made that the opposite is also true: you cannot always assume the cops are in the right. But there is also the valid point that the cops are on the side of law and order, and are appointed by our society specifically to make these decisions. So it's reasonable to give them latitude in these matters.

Again, none of the facts are being disputed. The man was being disruptive, hostile, and violent. He resisted arrest. What this boils down to is a difference of opinion about whether it is right for appointed authorities to use discretionary non-lethal force to uphold the law. Most of society would say 'yes' to that question.

The law actually states very clearly that if an officer tells you to do something, you must follow his instructions. Now you can hypothesize and theorize about extreme cases and unlawful commands, but all this kid was told to do was first to behave, then to comply with the officers as they removed him from the premises, then to get on the ground to be arrested. In each instance he refused to comply and became more aggressive and violent. The taser stopped him and stopped the matter from escalating. Why is this wrong in your eyes?

I have to admit I smiled when they zapped the bastard. He was acting like an asshole and got what was coming to him and he was fairly warned. There are basic rules for behavior in such a setting. With the social skills of a four year old, he was doomed from the start.

The validity of his question has little to do with this. If he had spoken softly but stood at the microphone with his junk hanging out, he would have been escorted away - regardless of what he had to say.

Here's the video of the kid getting tasered.

Tucker Carlson on the incident

The man was being disruptive, hostile, and violent. He resisted arrest.

Resisted arrest on what grounds?

When asked: "Why am I being arrested?" he was not given an answer. He, like all of us, have a constitutional right to know why we are being arrested.

It is a circular argument to be arrested for resisting arrest. First, a crime must be committed. Then, you must resist arrest for the first crime.

And to be 100% clear: I mean unlawful arrest. To arrest an American citizen without explaining the charges is unlawful.

Furthermore, we ALL have the legal right to resist unlawful arrest. The moment a police officer violates the law, they are no longer protected under the guise of "public servant".

Some reading material for y'all: http://www.constitution.org/uslaw/defunlaw.htm

This man has a constitutional right to the freedom of non-violent political expression. Any law in violation of this is unlawful (unconstitutional) and should be ignored.

Contrarily, we, as members of the audience, do not have any constitutional protections against being made uncomfortable by rude and unpopular speech.

The Constitution: more than a buzzword- the key to America's success.

Furthermore, having seen various clips of the incident, taken from various angles, by various people, I can say with all certainty that this man's violence was an act of self-defense.

He did not become violent until after he was unlawfully attacked.

And before you offer me more of your "I must be anti-cop" rhetoric, you couldn't be more wrong. I love cops. I love our entire system of constitutional law. However, the rights of every citizen must be protected with the highest priority. Period.

I oppose criminals. These officers acted in a criminal way. The fact that they serve as police officers becomes irrelevant the moment they forget their oath to the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, events such as this lead to further resistance by other students, more conflict with authority, and more violence- against other law-abiding cops.

Talk to a cop sometime. They hate these goons even more than I do. To quote one of my buddies:

"Cops like this make it extremely hard to do my job. How can I expect civilians to respect my authority with people like this on the loose?"

Well said, Zaphod. The downfall of America comes from people like Tea that are ignorant about what this country stands for. But that doesn't keep them from expressing their asinine remarks (without being arrested, which they're advocating). Tea, you say crap like that again I'll taser the hell out of you.

Thanks Tony D, but don't "tase him, bro". That would make you as bad as they are.

Hopefully one day Tea will be in a similar situation, and I can defend his rights too. Maybe then he will understand why people like me are allies, not enemies.

How many videos of cops abusing their power does it take to realize they are just as corrupt as anybody else. you give most people power, they will abuse it. yes blah blah we all know there are some good cops, but alot are dicks.

[blockquote]it is not an easy thing to subdue a struggling person. [/quote]

When I was in college, I did wrestling, judo and jujitsu. You can get a struggling person to completely wear themselves out in probably about 30 seconds. In the context of such sports, struggling crazily is the worst thing you can do. It's akin to struggling in quick sand.

Amongst the numerous ways that you can subdue someone really fast, all you need is to apply some pressure to the person's chest (i.e. a wrestling or judo pin) and that person will be sapped of energy pretty damn fast.

With 4-5 cops holding someone down, I couldn't imagine anything easier.

I recently read of someone having a chat with some nurses and doctors -- female ones... (I lived next to some medical students in college, and learned to enjoy these sort of stories.)

One of them made a joke about how asian men have small wieners (and black ones have big one) but it was instantly dismissed as a completely incorrect stereotype. Now, in their line of work, they got to observe the evidence first hand, of course.

HOWEVER, one of them pointed out that one group of people did tend to have small dicks.

Cops. And this is something that they all chimed in on -- cops tend to be less endowed than any other group; racial, religious, whatnot -- cops have small wieners.

Sometimes, the world makes sense.

Well, I must say for a European like me, this scene is quite incredible. A young man, a bit aggressive for sure, asks a few questions, not really following the rules of this kind of public speech is arrested and tased ???!!! And that such an arrest should be discussed seemingly because people should never resist the police, because they are "criminals" ???!!! I've attended many public speeches, political speeches, in which the audience became violent towards the speaker or were simply a bit over excited. In the worst cases, and some much worse than this one, the person or group was simply cut and accompanied outside the hall. That's it. I think the USA and our world in general (Europe is a good student) has a problem with free speech, even with your 1st amendment, and needs to use of indiscriminate force and brutality, not challegend. If not true totalitarianism, this is the beginning of it. "Good night and good luck!" as KO would say.

Oh come on…for years cops were able to subdue and control without tasers, especially when they outnumbered 6 to one - did you see the size of one of the cops?

He was a student, this was a public forum, and he did nothing wrong, except make an ass out of himself - just like T4TT does.

Your anti-authority stance is nothing but childish oppositional defiance.

Tea, your arguments were well made and perfectly valid but if you actually intend on trying to convince anybody of anything you can't say things like this without looking like an arrogant 15-year-old brat.

It seems that this kid got arrested because every time there's a public forum of this kind they need some extra rent-a-cops to cover it. Please keep in mind that this isn't a tactical strike against civil liberties (like getting undercover cops to actually inciting riots in order to discredit protesters but that's another story) but instead is a bunch of cops who did everything short of fail their entrance exams and get them to provide security for public events.

childish oppositional defiance?

Let me make this clear: 60 years ago my great aunt was torn from her home and sent to a death camp by a goon-of-the-state like this.

There is nothing more sacred than the rights of the individual. Whether I agree with their particular viewpoint is irrelevant.

When they abuse the rights of one of us, the attack the souls of all of us.

end rant. You either "get it", or you don't. Nothing else I can say will make any difference.

First of all cops are given tool all the time that they misuse and abuse. This was the controversy 5 or so years ago when they started arming law enforcement agencies with "non-lethal" weapons. It became apparent that if you gave a person a weapon and said it would kill, said person was more likely to us it without pause. My real issue with this case as I understand it is: I've attended a few colleg institutions in my life and city cops aside, I've NEVER met a CAMPUS COP with anywhere close to the intelligence or maturity to carry any weapon without eventually abusing it. Oh god, how I hate little wiener campus cops, as, I understand it, these guys were.

The things that I don't like about this incident is the actual violence involved in tasering. Tasering seems to be to be a thouroughly violent act and the equvalent of being hit with a fist or a baton. Would it have been acceptable to the people supporting these cops if one of them hat punched the guys or hit him with a baton? Does anybody know who asked the cops to interviene and/or under what mantade they intervened? We don't have 'campus cops' where I'm from and I'm wondering what authority these guys have to involve themselves in anything but security at an even like this.