What are your thoughts about the Iranian-American student at UCLA being tasered for not having his I.D. on November of 2006?
I have been asked about this quite a few times. Someone recently brought this issue back to my attention and asked me to address my individual thoughts on the situation, here on this blog. I watched the video a few times, as well to kind of understand the incident. I watched it quite a few times (in case I missed something relevant); I, then, realized the horrible distinction and example it gave.
I always praised cops and still do, but now I know that "dirty" cops do exist and the UCLA police are some fine examples of what "dirty" are depicted as. I think the cops here are incompetent and truly an insult to the uniform. I say this because I believe that it was truly unethical for the UCLA police force to taser him (as in UCLA Iranian-American student), let alone 5 times for extended amounts of time.
Just because someone is cocky or has a bad attitude, does NOT mean it is acceptable to taser them. Tasers are used as a last resort, before a gun. They are a weapon. They are for defense purposes only. I can understand if they tasered him once (even though, that is unethical), but they tasered him continuously, even after he was completely defenseless. He was completely unconscious after being tasered the second time.
When someone is tasered, they lose mobility and control. The loss of mobility varies per person/per shock, from the taser. The muscles spasm create an immediate paralyzing sensation that can last for a long period of time (which again, varies). Although, it is temporary, it's been said that there are deadly effects from taser guns resulting in death. In fact, there have been 75 cases of death in a 4 year period from taser usage just here in the United States. Yes, there is no question, you can die. I can understand if they tasered him once (as I stated previously), but they did it five times. The UCLA police asked him to "get up" and continued to taser him, when he couldn't get up, let alone speak. He was completely unconscious from the effects.
The UCLA police abused their authority and went way out of their jurisdiction. Even after the Iranian-American student was completely defenseless, they tasered him multiple times, after he was already tasered twice. The police could have escorted him out (he was defenseless and they outnumbered him), instead they continued to abrasively taser him, until he fell to the ground.
All for what?
Because he gave an attitude and didn't have his ID. As a 26 year old Iranian American woman, I find this completely wrong.
