If you want to motivate someone to move, you don't taze them. Tazers aren't cattle prods.

Second, if the student attacked one of the cops, that would be different, but refusing to move is passive resistance. There was no threat to the officers involved.

Still, I admit, the student was a dick. Rules are rules, and I don't feel sorry for him at all.

The most disturbing thing about all this is the number of people on the message boards (I checked out several of them) who claim that because the young man was not cooperating, he deserved what he got.

Legally, the cops have perhaps half of one leg to stand on. After 11 pm, UCLA policy states that only students and faculty may use the library, which is otherwise a public place. Escorting someone out who refuses to show ID is a reasonable way to enforce that policy. Tasering someone is a whole different ballgame.

Many people have pointed out that the young man had a beef with the cops, that he was being provocative, that he was yelling at them and refusing to cooperate.

Many of these same people have somehow implied that this somehow makes it OKAY for the cops to repeatedly tase a person--taseing being something cops do instead of, say, hitting or shooting someone. "The kid had it coming." "He was being an ass." "Clearly he was asking for it."

So, when confronted with the spectacle of a naive, angry, and possibly arrogant young man suddenly brought to the floor, screaming with pain, and cops threatening him (and others) with more extreme pain, Americans seem to be very comfortable taking sides with those inflicting the pain. Even those sympathetic to the young man's cause seem to distance themselves from him, from his emotion, his political passion ("It's embarrassing," said one sympathizer), and from his suffering.

Do Americans know what compassion is anymore? Is hurting people something we're cool with? Is inflicting pain just part of who we are? Waterboarding, taseing... it's just what needs to be done to THOSE PEOPLE, right? The suspicious ones, the ones who yell at cops and get angry just because someone asks for their ID.

Because clearly, this young man, this student, was politicized BEFORE the cops decided he was such a threat they needed to shoot a few thousand volts through his body... several times. And somebody who was politicized, who was provocative, manipulative, distrustful (God forbid!) of auhtority figures, who was overreacting, is obviously suspect and deserves to suffer. He is not worthy of our compassion.

So...

WHO ARE WE?

I completely agree with Savel, though my own previous response was more shocked and bitter. I don't normally post twice on the same topic unless I was massively unclear & consequently misunderstood, but there are two further things I would like to say.

First, although I no longer live in the US, the next thing I did after commenting here was go give a donation to the ACLU (and complain that they don't have any "action alerts" about Guatanamo, since I think that's a big part of what's corrupting the soul of the USA.)

Second, this guy may well be a jerk, but he's certainly a hero. He made the decision to keep up his civil disobedience knowing this was being witnessed. He could change the country.

Actually, a lot of heros are also jerks. If you accept (for example) that anyone who cheats on a spouse is a jerk, one can quickly think of a lot of famous heros that are jerks. It probably takes that arrogance to believe you can change the system. I wouldn't want to see any university campus without at least a few young idealists trying to actually do something with their lives and make a difference.

Heroic is not being a nonconformist regarding a simple procedure designed with everyone's safety in mind. It may not be heroic to say, "I'm sorry, I forgot my ID," and to deal with the consequences. So what? It is not heroic to waste the time and energy of the officers involved over a simply "please show your ID" policy. It is the opposite of peaceful and respectful to deliberately cause a scene, to deliberately choose to not cooperate.

This is not good v. evil. This is the stupid faux righteous indignation of a college student who does know better against a poorly-trained wannabe police officer pushed well-past his pathetically poor judgment.

I say we let the college boy taser the officer in question and call it a day. Then they'll both have learned a lesson in common sense.

1. Showing your ID card is NOT the slippery slope to fascism.

2. Next time someone chooses to go limp, it's all the easier to cuff and drag their sorry ass into the paddy wagon. The cuffed one has a choice.

This dickhead is not Rosa Parks. This was not Civil Disobedience. It was stupid behavior that begged for a stupid response. Both sides got exactly what they deserved.

Woe to the pretend Civil Disobedience protester who chooses to lie down in the street and stop traffic to prove some pointless point. If I'm in the front of the line, I'm running your sad, sorry ass over. Didn't your momma teach you not to play in traffic?

Likewise to the next 'hunger striker,' whatever the cause. You don't wanna eat? Fine. You just saved the state some money and made your cause look retarded. Since when does not having breakfast, lunch, or dinner lend credence to anything? It just makes you sound like you wanna be a model.

Could have caused a lot less fuss by just getting up and moving to the back of the bus. Hey, it was the law. I bet if you'd seen the video of her you would have thought she was being pretty stroppy too.

I didn't say he shouldn't have shown his ID. I did say he was a hero for making a point about the police brutality once the situation started. And that it's not a coincidence that those two actions were performed by the same person.