Say good-bye to your rights. Do not ask about Bush impeachment. Just ask Andrew Meyer.
The questions and the arrest. Notice the cops not moving until the "Skull and Bones" question is asked:
"Don't tase me bro"
Being arrested, tasered, and still wondering why he was arrested
"What did I do?"
Notice how many people sat there and did NOTHING while a man is being abused and screaming for help. Read more here.
UPDATED Although official charges have not been filed by the State Attorney's office, he has been written up as charged with "resisting an officer and disturbing the peace."
From the new link:
"Police recommended charges of resisting arrest with violence, a felony, and disturbing the peace and interfering with school administrative functions, a misdemeanor."
How can you resist arrest when you are not under arrest? The "interfering with school functions" charge seems like a result of the spectacle and the arrest was abuse of power. There is no resisting here unless it is unlawful to stand up for your rights in the face of tyranny. I am no lawyer, but this just stinks all over and is smelling worse every moment. I hope the State Attorney refuses to charge Andrew and that those cops are removed from the force with no pay.
14 comments:
He spent quite a bit of time resisting, which was why he was tased and based on the video you showed he was warned several times to quit resisting and he was also warned he would be tased. He began resisted when they (gently) moved him away from the microphone. This student appeared to be looking for publicity to me.
He was clearly being arrested for resisting and causing a scene. If he hadn't jumped away and started screaming when asked to leave he could have walked out.
Just because he was screaming doesn't mean he was being abused. It looked to me like they used quite a bit of restraint while he continued to struggle for a long time.
Maybe we saw a different video, but I saw the student escalate the situation. The little girl cop moved him away from the mic and he started screaming.
But the thing is why was he removed from the mike in the first place? I saw nothing in either video that warrented the reaction from those cops. He was tazed after he was already under their control. You can hear him begging not to be tazed right before they did it.
The second video shows him still not knowing why he was removed and why he was arrested. I am a person who assumed that, inorder to resist arrest there must be a reason for the arrest in the first place.
This is being looked into by the University and the Gainesville police.
I may be seeing this all wrong of course. There is an offical motioning to cut off the guy's mike. The cops then spring to remove the guy. Maybe someone should have let him know he was out of time first. Police state tactics here. Remove a person by force as first option.
I've seen this a couple of times now and my reaction remains the same -- appalled. I think the use of physical force to silence someone's (supposedly free) speech is abuse of power. There's no call for that in an ostensibly free society. IMO, the violence was completely unwarranted.
While I agree with you that he was removed from the mic because he brought up the Skull and Bones question, I still say he was the one that escalated the situation.
He was not jumped by the police. The female cop took a hold of his arm to guide him away. He pulled away from her so the male cop also took a hold of him and then the student began screaming and struggling and causing a scene. He was tasered when he would not stop struggling.
Question: Why does him saying don't taser me, make a difference? He was resisting arrest. He did not stop struggling.
I watched the to the end of the second video.
I disagree that he was being abused. The cops tried to the end to calm him down. He had no ID. He refused to identify himself. He was accusing the cops of trying to take him away to kill him. I don't think this guy was wrapped to tight.
Probably not Golden. I tend to find that everyone involved in these situations always make the worst possible choices. Both this guy and the cops were wrong in what they did. I personally just hold the cops to a higher standard of behavior. Should I? I don't know, but I do.
Why does him saying don't taser me, make a difference?
Great point and I could be wrong, but to me, it shows he was already under control and lucid as to what was happening around him. He was not going crazy or out of control. He was aware he was being arrested and aware of what the cops were doing. He was calm at the time he was tased. There is complete quiet on the tape before he screams in pain. It was unneeded. The cops are on unpaid leave and it is being looked into so I can't be the only one seeing it as excessive force on a lucid and compliant person.
I looked at the video again where he was tasered and he was not quiet and calm. He struggled from his stomach onto his back again and he continued to scream "What did I do?" over and over again. I will look again tonight at home.
And just because the cops are being reviewed (which is as it should be) doesn't they are guilty. Plus perhaps they are being reviewed because of public opinion and not because the cops were wrong.
In my opinion, this man was trying to cause a public riot; not because of the question he asked but because his behavior was over the top.
Golden,
I very well probably am looking at this through emotion colored glasses. He looked lucid to me, but not to you. Only proves the old saying: there are three sides to every story- yours, mine, and what really happened.
Thank you for debating and I hope I did it politely. I am known to get emotional in debates sometimes.
Holy crap! Golden is dead wrong. I would have fought an unwarranted arrest myself. There was no reason for the treatment this man received.
My reasons for being an unpatriotic anti-american views get reinforced by seeing this crap.
What the hell has this country become?
In hindsight, I'm sure the situation could have been handled differently by all concerned, the student included. I have to say, though, that if it was clear that someone was going to hurt me (Taser), police or not, yeah, I'd struggle to try to avoid the pain. I think it would be instinctual.
I'm sorry, but that makes me sick to my stomach. I keep erasing my comment because I don't want to sound inflammatory toward anyone who could possibly defend this event. It's totally unacceptable.
Careful Birdie,
You are getting close to being political. I cannot believe that out of three posts, two with prose, you comment on the political one.
I do know the cops over reacted by quite a bit, but the video was posted and edited to get a response. That is why it starts so weirdly. I would like to know what happened before. It was obviously taped, but not posted.
I saw several news pieces that said people who were there said the student was at the back of the line to use the mic. He "barged" his way to the front, "grabbed" the mic from the person in front of it and he asked several questions, being asked several times to step back and wait his turn, which he did not do. Also, the person who filmed was a friend of the student and the student told him to be ready to film.
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