Yeah, you would have hit him with your textbook and that would have been it, huh? I guess your odious self-rightgeousness would've protecetd you from retribution.

And of course you would never be one of those people who deserve to get punched in the face now and then, right?

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.

I live in Canada where we (fortunately) do not have tasers but it makes we wonder about what circumstances police are legally allowed to use tasers. I could understand using a taser on someone lunging at them with a knife but I'm not sure what right they have to use it on a handcuffed suspect. They were in essence using corporal punishment which (I thought) was illegal.

I am a psychiatry resident and I often have to deal with agitated and violent patients who are suffering from psychosis. Our security guards are able to subdue the patients using only teamwork and no tasers, guns, billyclubs or threats of violence. It is true that we also use chemical sedation (usually haldol, ativan or olanzapine) but we can only use it once the patient is already subdued. I guess I am wondering why highly trained police officers are incapable of physically moving a single handcuffed subject out of a library without using pain and the threat of pain?

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.

Your argument is semantic. It is their job to subdue me if I become resistant, unruly, threatening, or violent. I could wind up tased, teargassed, beaten, shot with a rubber bullet, or shot with a live round, depending on what I happen to be doing at the moment. That is, in all practical terms, physical "punishment" for my immediate actions. Legal punishment comes later.

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."

No, they don't have blank check but they do have a set of specific guidelines and conditions under which they may resort to non-lethal force to control a situation. No lives were in danger here, so they didn't resort to lethal force. The problem police face when confronted by shouting, struggling, tantrum-throwing people, though, is that they don't have time to dither over whether or not that person is just being a pain in the ass for sport or if they're really going to pull a dangerous stunt. You don't like the law, change it.

"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.

Security guards didn't taser him. Security guards do not carry weapons. UCLA police tasered him. UCLA police are sworn law officers who operate under the California Penal Code. They are armed, and operate under the same regulations and authority as municipal police.

Plus, I imagine these security people thought they could get away with it because the guy's name is Mostafa.

How would they know his name if he refused to show his ID?

Yeah, you would have hit him with your textbook and that would have been it, huh? I guess your odious self-rightgeousness would've protecetd you from retribution.

Possibly, it depends on how many people in the immediate area agreed with me. Possibly not, though, which is what keeps most people's baser impulses in check. I suspect that most people don't act out violent fantasies out of fear of reprisal (revenge or arrest, either one), not becuase they possess some nobility of character. Like when someone's car alarm goes off at 2am --- how many times do people dream of smashing the car windows with a baseball bat? Why don't they do it? Probably because they fear getting caught.

I have twice witnessed such events, both of them happened to be immediate and deeply satisfying retribution for guys who hit their girlfriends. Once was on my own college campus, when a guy outside my dorm thumped his girlfriend. Two of my roommates immediately went running downstairs -- one with a metal vaccuum cleaner pipe in her hands -- only to be met by two guys running from *another* dorm who chased the guy, tackled him, and pounded the holy hell out of him. The second was walking through Kenmore Square one night after clubbing and first hearing a guy his his girlfriend and then seeing another guy who was walking towards them at the time haul off and slug the guy in the jaw and shout "like the way that feels?" then just continue on his way.

And of course you would never be one of those people who deserve to get punched in the face now and then, right?

I certainly try not to be, but I won't deny that I've done some obnoxious things in the past and I'm sure more than one person has wanted to give me a good belt over the years. That it hasn't happened probably says more about them than it does about me, of course, but you are free to draw your own conclusions.