The Taser Incident

The net is buzzing about an Iranian-American UCLA student getting tasered by campus police at the library:

Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a UCLA student, was repeatedly stunned with a Taser and then taken into custody when he did not exit the CLICC Lab in Powell Library in a timely manner. Community Service Officers had asked Tabatabainejad to leave after he failed to produce his BruinCard during a random check at around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Naturally, a concerned citizen with a cellphone camera caught the incident on video. YouTube, anyone?



"Here's your Patriot Act! Here's your fucking abuse of power!"

Now, I don't want to get all knee-jerk here, but if I get tasered by some cop, I'm not going to be making political statements. I'm going to be pretty much doing whatever I have to to avoid another shock. But that's just me.

I know this is going to get a lot of play over the next few days, with the inevitable blaming of President Bush for the whole thing. From what I saw, the student was being unresponsive to the officers' commands and argumentative. Plus, the whole "Patriot Act" comment really makes me wonder if this wasn't a bit of planned street theatre.

I know, I know, but I find it hard to put anything past the "socially aware".

By the way, here's a video of someone getting tasered who doesn't have a comment to make about the Patriot Act or abuses of power. Please note the lack of hysterical screaming.