the UCLA incident

[threeplusfire]

From a comment that just got too long -

I just caught the video on YouTube with the UCLA student getting shocked, and I certainly don't want to excuse the actions of the guy who threatened a student asking for his badge number. That is scary, and needs to be handled right away. It was so out of line and out of control. I'm frankly a little surprised they didn't end up with a riot with all those students shouting and screaming.

But I think the issue isn't a bad cop. The real problem is the culture of fear, the laws, the climate that contributes to creating actions like this. Yes, there are some bad cops out there. There are some mean motherfuckers who want to abuse their power. But there are far more honest, decent and brave people working in law enforcement I believe. I talk to police officers on an almost daily basis, and they are all out there fighting the good fight. It's not the cops that are the problem. It's people like George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, the lawmakers who passed the so called anti-terrorism laws that suspend rights, the culture of fear this country has been breeding since the World Trade Center was destroyed - that's what leads us to the kind of moment when a college student can get tased for not being able to produce ID and get out of the library fast enough.

I saw a news headline comparing this something that would have happened in Nazi Germany, or the Soviet Union.

Comments

[kevinblanchard.livejournal.com]

generally cops are told they may only use things like tasers and guns in conditions where they feel there life is directly at risk. Here is the video of what happeneded. You can hear students in the background yelling for them to stop.

woah.

[geoectomy.livejournal.com]

So, where was the threat to their life? I'm thinking it was the presence of so many bystanders and onlookers. I'm thinking one of them choked. It ended up becoming a sort of hostage situation... They couldn't let the guy go, because that would appear like an admission of guilt. They made mistakes because they just wanted out of there, and couldn't get out of there fast enough.

None of this makes it right, but it became a situation where they were trying to get out with the least amount of damage. If the other students had rioted or even a handful tried to intervene, it likely would have gotten a whole lot uglier because these officers didn't seem to be prepared to deal with what they had on their hands.

A buddy of mine, when he went through the physical portion of some of his training had a segment that included getting tazed. I'm not sure every police department does this. They should.

As a security supervisor of a public establishment, I'm the only one on my site equipped with handcuffs. I hope I never have the need to use them. But if it ever goes south, I will.

I would very much like to hear the officers' side of things. Not that it would change my opinion, but it would shed light on his motivations and perhaps the area of training that needs to be focused on in the future, for other officers.