Student tasering at UCLA may have been a staged SCAM!!!!!!

[Avenger1980]

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=25582

Of all the travesties of justice, the most egregious according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is the rush to judgment of Muslim terrorism suspects. So it’s ironic that the Muslim civil-rights group is leading the charge to convict in the court of public opinion the UCLA police officers who used a Taser to subdue an Iranian-American student in a campus library last week.

“Something went wrong and the community demands some answers,” said Affad Shaikh, civil rights coordinator for CAIR, at a protest on campus last Friday. Indeed, most of those protesting at the event—which was sponsored by student organizations including the Muslim Students Association and the National Iranian-American Council—had all but concluded that UCPD officers now pose the biggest threat to UCLA students. The crowd resoundingly shouted “No” when Samer Araabi, a representative on the Undergraduate Students Association, asked if they felt protected by the police.

In fact, the incident began because of a policy designed to protect students. Mostafa Tabatabainejad—a fourth-year Middle Eastern and North African studies and philosophy student who is, ironically, Baha'i and not Muslim—was asked by community service officers (CSO’s) to show his ID card as part of a standard procedure to ensure that all library patrons after 11 p.m. are authorized to be there. The CSO’s asked for assistance from UCPD officers when Tabatabainejad refused repeated requests to provide identification or to leave the library. UCLA Police Chief Karl Ross explained that the officers only used the Taser to incapacitate Tabatabainejad after he started urging others to join in his resistance and went limp while being escorted out.

Retired LAPD officer Clark Baker described the incident as having “all the hallmarks of a planned event—one that would generate hysteria among students and civil libertarians.” Tabatabainejad’s attorney Stephen Yagman seemed to confirm this view when he said his client did not present his ID card because he believed he was being singled out in an incident of racial profiling. This will presumably be argued in court, as Tabatabainejad plans to file a lawsuit against university police alleging "brutal excessive force" and false arrest. However, a UCLA freshman writing in to Michelle Malkin’s blog made clear that “it is absurd to believe that Mr. Tabatabainejad was targeted based on his race or ethnicity,” because CSO’s—who are students hired by UCPD to help with security—routinely perform random ID card checks.

CAIR seems to think the police officers—not Tabatabainejad—were the ones looking to make a scene that night. As a result, the organization has urged “state and national authorities, including the FBI” to investigate the incident. This is one of the rare times that CAIR has actually supported an FBI investigation. In spite of the group’s claims to want to support law enforcement, CAIR members have been convicted of supporting terrorism far more than they have ever helped in terrorism investigations. Warren Bamford, a representative of the FBI, speaking at a press conference this year said, “At this time, I don’t have any specific recollection of any times that [CAIR] has helped our investigations.”

CAIR prefers to question the legitimacy of any arrests of Muslim suspects. After the arrests last year of two Muslim men on gun charges following the FBI’s months-long surveillance of two Sacramento mosques, Basim Elkarra, executive director of the Sacramento branch of CAIR, said, “We’re interested to see to what extent they’re using informants, and whether there’s entrapment.” Elkarra’s suspicions can be explained by the fact that CAIR believes no valuable information on Islamic extremists can ever come from mosques or imams. When Stephen Tidwell, assistant director in charge of the FBI in Los Angeles, earlier this year assured Muslims that “we do not, we cannot, we do not” monitor Muslim students at UC-Irvine, CAIR viewed it as a victory. CAIR spokeswoman Sabiha Khan said, “Thankfully with improved training of the FBI we hear less and less of the questions about what mosque [Muslims] went to or what imam they liked to listen to.” One example of such training occurred in August when a Religious and Cultural Sensitivity Training Seminar about Islam and Muslims was conducted by CAIR at the FBI San Diego Field Office.

Because criticizing American policies—not the terrorists these policies are designed to stop—is what animates CAIR, it is not at all surprising that the group joined with the American Muslim Council and the American Muslim alliance in February 2003 to form a coalition to repeal or amend the Patriot Act. The anti-terrorism legislation has been used by groups like CAIR to portray Muslims as innocent victims whose civil liberties have been trampled on by the United States government.

Perhaps this helps explain why Mostafa Tabatabainejad chose to yell, “Here’s your Patriot Act!” while he was being removed from the UCLA library and shout, “Am I the only martyr?” when other students chose not to be a part of his “resistance.”

His choice of words is significant: Just as many Muslims view Palestinian suicide bombers as heroes fighting against Israeli oppression, CAIR has now found its own martyr to help shine light on the supposed injustices of America.

[Darwinist]

Even if he was baiting the cops to go heavy on the force - it´s clear from the video that they did go excessively heavy on the force, no matter what his intentions or views. This amount of force isn´t(unless you are incompetent) neccesary to subdue and remove a belligerent person. After the first tasing, they were clearly in the wrong.

And Frontpagemag is not the best source for this.....really.

[C12azy3y3s]

Ha, he made us tazer the living shit out of him, we swear!

[InSummary]

Again, anyone bitching about the force used in this situation knows NOTHING about law enforcement.


Failing to physically cooperate with police officers allows them the use of such force. Officers do not have to place themselves in a situation of wrestling/struggling with a person, risking injury, in order to get someone to comply. If you attempt to place officers in a such a situation, anticipate a buzz.

[Dzwon]

I saw the video. From what I could decipher, the student was screaming hysterically long before they tasered him: "stop touching me!" Then he was told to get down, and got sapped. And a while later there were two more taserings, this time while they yelled at him to get up.

The student claimed to have been on his way out. If that was true, the cops would have been smarter to actually have let him leave -- unless they'd already decided to arrest him at that point, since he had already been asked to leave, and refused. Then he basically threw a fit because they touched him -- and that's just idiocy, if you'd already refused to leave. I mean, that's just a total set-up.

The idiot cops deserves to be fired. At least one of those taserings were AFTER the idiot was cuffed. Tasering is ment to subdue -- not to punish. If you can't subdue a handcuffed man, you've got no business being a cop.

The idiot student deserves a good bitch-slapping for behaving like a brat. Or, if they can prove that this was a set-up, something a lot worse. He deserves no compensation, even if he got zapped while cuffed.

[Darwinist]

Originally Posted by InSummary

Again, anyone bitching about the force used in this situation knows NOTHING about law enforcement.


Failing to physically cooperate with police officers allows them the use of such force. Officers do not have to place themselves in a situation of wrestling/struggling with a person, risking injury, in order to get someone to comply. If you attempt to place officers in a such a situation, anticipate a buzz.

This is flat-out wrong. Tasers and mace are not persuasal tool, at least not in any halfway civilized nation - they are non-lethal self-defence weapons.

This man was cuffed and outnumbered, he posed NO physical threat to the officers whatsoever, reducing their actions to the level of using extreme pain as a tool to obtain compliane.

They were more than capable of physically removing him from the premises. Their methods were ham-fisted, amateurish and excessively cruel no matter how you slice it. I´ve shown this vid to LEO´s who fully agree and are apalled at the liberal use of electric shock in this scenario.

[Evil Eye Gouger]

Frontpagemag is a sensationalist rag.

Now they're comparing the kid to a suicide bomber?

[GermanBJJ]

Originally Posted by Evil Eye Gouger

Frontpagemag is a sensationalist rag.

Yup. Look at this leap of logic by the author:

Retired LAPD officer Clark Baker described the incident as having “all the hallmarks of a planned event—one that would generate hysteria among students and civil libertarians.” Tabatabainejad’s attorney Stephen Yagman seemed to confirm this view when he said his client did not present his ID card because he believed he was being singled out in an incident of racial profiling.

(Emphasis added.)

We all know that refusing to show ID because one was singled out due to his race (which he may or may not have been) = "a planned event...that would generate hysteria among...civil libertarians."

[LETHAL]

Originally Posted by Darwinist

This is flat-out wrong. Tasers and mace are not persuasal tool, at least not in any halfway civilized nation - they are non-lethal self-defence weapons.

Agreed taser's should only be used in non-lethal situations, but cops don't deal with the average guy everyday and there's no telling what situation could end up lethal or not.
They see the worst of the worst everyday, so can only expect that.
If they physically harmed him over a verbal dispute, that's one thing, but once they say leave or place him under arrest and he refuses they have no choice but physical action.
So why should they risk getting hurt when they can use a tool that will put distance between them and subdue the person without contact?
Many cops have been stabbed, shot with their own guns, etc.
These are things people don't take into account before screaming police brutality.

[Darwinist]

Originally Posted by LETHAL

Agreed taser's should only be used in non-lethal situations, but cops don't deal with the average guy everyday and there's no telling what situation could end up lethal or not.
They see the worst of the worst everyday, so can only expect that.
If they physically harmed him over a verbal dispute, that's one thing, but once they say leave or place him under arrest and he refuses they have no choice but physical action.
So why should they risk getting hurt when they can use a tool that will put distance between them and subdue the person without contact?
Many cops have been stabbed, shot with their own guns, etc.
These are things people don't take into account before screaming police brutality.

You did notice that the guy had his hands cuffed behind his back and was flat on his stomach, surrounded by 2-3 police officers the entire time right?

He could not harm them in any way. Cuff his legs too(there were extra cuffs available since I think it´s safe to assume each officer has one pair), grab him one round the torso and the othe round the legs, hoist him up and carry his ass out of there would have been the proper course of action.

Yelling at a recently-tased man whose mental state is dubious at best, who´s ranting and raving incoherently and offering him a CHOICE between standing up or getting tased again is not only inherently wrong(you do not use a potential tasing as a negative incentive), it´s also not guaranteed to produce results. The man was clearly not in the most rational or balanced state of mind. He may not even be able to understand what is going on. Plumping for the taser is just flat out wrong.

1. He was neutralised(cuffed)
2. He was outnumbered.
3. He was unarmed(I assume since they had him down, they must have searched him for weapons or they are totally 100% incompetent)