Letters to the Editor
LeCastor
Published Letters: 1916 Editor's Choice: 86
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Again, do you think that police brutality doesn't exist?
[Read the article: Shocking incident]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Note my emphasis on the second part of that sentence. "Accept the consequences". You are free to say "No" to anything you like. I am free to say "No" to anything I like. But if you or I engage in defiance then we cannot turn around and say that we should have been exempt from punishment. If the punishment is within the bounds of law, then either change the law or shut the fuck up and accept your choice.
What you fail to understand, it seems, is that in this country, the police are not the givers of punishment. Before you are punished, you have a right to be in some way before a judge and possibly a jury, and the punishment is given to you by a competent tribunal, on the evidence or on your own admissions, and executed by the correctional department. The police's role is not punishment. The police have absolutely no authority under the law to punish you.
If law enforcement believes that *lives* are in danger (i.e. "self defense" or I think "necessity" if it's someone else's life) they use lethal force. End of story.
It's not as simple as that. The police are subject to a requirement of proportional force. That's why they can't beat the fuck out of you when they arrest you. please read my post above about proportionality: the police do not have a blank check on the use of force. A cop can't shoot you in the head for calling him an asshole. No lives were in danger in this case. Nothing, it seems, was in danger here. This is exactly the type of case for which we have legal causes of action for citizens like "police brutality" and "malicious arrest."
And I still would have slapped my Bio textbook across the fucker's jaw
Me I probably would have cracked him across the head with my 20lb copy of "Introduction to Cell Biology" but only because I would have really enjoyed hearing the thump.
You seem a little bloodthirsty. I'm not sure why you're so angry at this guy.
This guy didn't get tazed because he didn't have his ID on him. He got tazed for being an asshole, refusing to comply with university regulations (of which he was well aware and agreed to by default by attending), and finally resisting arrest.
Again,it's a question of proportionality. Do you think everyone who is an asshole to campus security or violates university regulations (e.g. no sixpacks in your dorm room) deserves to be tazed? I sure don't.
And even if he was resisting arrest, there are ways to subdue suspects without repeatedly tazing them and then threatening to taze onlookers.
"Figures of authority" like these security guards are not infallible. Often, they turn into assholes themselves, high on their power trip, high on the fact that they are people who most likely never went to college, yet they get to boss these wussy UCLA students around. I bet there's a lot of resentment there, between the security guards of UCLA and the privileged and often very wealthy student body. Plus, I imagine these security people thought they could get away with it because the guy's name is Mostafa.
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Kate & the Tazer
[Read the article: Shocking incident]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Kate,
"There are just some folks who would be well-served by a good punch in the face every now and again."
It reminds me of that new york state judge that dismissed battery charges against a husband, saying to the wife "every woman needs a good beating now and then."
Maybe you're right. Maybe you should go out and taze yourself and see if you think it was appropriate to taze this person in this situation.
Somehow I think if Mostafa here were a blond girl name Kate Smith (or something like that), no one would have tazed the girl. In fact, i think no one would have given her a hard time about not having her ID. They would have let it slip. But not with a Mostafa-looking Mostafa.