Kerry Kid Tasered - But Why?

So here's the full vid of Andrew Meyer, the kid who ended up getting tasered at John Kerry's campus forum. It includes Meyers questions, him being approached by campus police, the incident, and then student reactions and a press release by a University Police department Captain.



Regardless of your personal feelings about this kid, that doesn't change the fact that he was up at the mic being allowed to speak, and then when he asked a question someone (not Kerry, I think he actually answered it) didn't like, they shut off the mic and the police moved straight in. Instead of immediately grabbing him, which anyone would instinctively try to brush off, the cops could have moved between him and the stage, and proceeded to navigate him towards the exit.

Now, clearly this event is anything but simple. The first question to ask is whether the police acted according to law.



This is a video from not too long ago - The Tasering of Mostafa Tabatabainejad in the UCLA Library. He was tasered something like 6 times on the video, and as I recall the reason was because he wouldn't show his student ID, he was muslim, combined with the fact that he wasn't inclined to stand up immediately after being tasered. This seems like common sense to me, because I've stuck my finger in a wall socket and I didn't much feel like moving either.

In both these situations, it would seem that the biggest problem is not with the students, but how the police treat them. If police can restrain themselves from using force even if the students were to spit on their shoes or call them 'pigs' (Neither was done in these cases, of course), then of course this wouldn't have been news because nothing would have happened.

I, too, have been at the mercy of the police. One night in high school I was at a friends house until around 1 am, and was walking out to my car to drive home, when a spotlight shown on me and two cop cars drove up. It turned out there had been a house party nearby in this suburban neighborhood, and the police had broken it up earlier in the night. But they were still in the neighborhood patrolling for kids scurrying around, I guess?
At any rate, I told them where I had come from, but because I was young and in the same neighborhood and it was late, they put me in the back of their police car for 30 minutes, asking me questions. They tried to get me to admit that I was drunk or crazy,(and btw, if you're ever asked if you're crazy by the cops, it's because they're trying to get you to admit you've been smokin the reefer. They threaten to take you not to jail, but to a Psychiatric Ward! This also happened to my friend...of course, he actually was high and said that approach works wonders for getting you to admit you're intoxicated.

At any rate, I finally got through their questions and a PBT test, and they let me go.


But the other question is...if in both these cases, there were no video cameras or camera phones...would we have heard about it? My guess is, probably not. I mean, they could have even reached newspapers, but without such compelling video of the misguided actions of the boys in blue, no one would really care.

Here's another compelling video of Hardball: with Chris Mattews, Joe Conason of the NY Observer and Medea Benjamin from Code Pink


And that brings me to a conclusion of sorts. What is a police officer? Beyond all that 'serve and protect' crap, the shiny badge, the gun, and the blue boxers, any cop is just another misguided human who doesn't know why he's here or if anything he does matters, just like the rest of us. The only problem is, this regular guy, who grew up with all the little pains and heartaches and injustices done that happen to all of us, he is allowed a taser and a gun to hold and use when he deems necessary.

That in itself is why the police will always have a hard time convincing younger generations that they're there to help.