Men like my late grandfather - who was a combat veteran of WWII - would have stepped up and physically forced the cops to stop what they were doing. Why? Because they would have known it was DEAD WRONG, and just because the guys doing it were cops meant nothing. Tyranny is tyranny, folks, whether meted out by institutions or individual, petite martinette cops.

My grandfather, who was also socially conservative, greatly admired the Hells Angels precisely because the Angels would tell the cops to go fuck themselves and back those words up with fists, chains and clubs. You know what that's called? It's called "Live Free or Die", it's called "Don't Tread On Me."

You fucking people should be ashamed of your cowardice. As should those 100 or so students who just stood around and WATCHED as one of their fellow citizens was tortured before their very eyes. If they had bum-rushed those fucking cops the cops would have high-tailed it the hell out of there.

One last thing. We give cops entirely too many weapons and entirely too much leeway in using them. Thirty years ago, when American society was much more violent, an average cop in an average city or town had three things backing up their badge: A six shooter with a couple of speed-loaders; a baton; and their own gravitas. Big city cops also had mace. That was it. But in those days cops took pride in being able to read and handle people without ever pulling out a weapon, and that includes when arresting them. Nowadays cops have everything from military grade machine pistols to pepper spray to dojo-style specialized batons to tasers and stun guns. And so of course they use them, relying on these weapons to do their jobs for them. What a pathetic excuse for professionalism.

One things for certain. No one in power need ever worry about sweeping or revolutionary change in this country. There are just too many chickenshits.

The boy was re-tasered several times while he was 1) on the ground 2) handcuffed 3) surrounded by officers who could have used other means to deal with the situation at that point.

That's police brutality. It's on tape.

As for 'not obeying the law,' if you're referring to my comments, those would be words I never wrote. My basic premise is that one should not tolerate abuse of power. Those men should be fired. The university should apologize. The police department should apologize and re-structure the way they screen and train those individuals who are police officers so that this does not happen again.

Disobeying the law has nothing to do with it. Again, whether or not the student didn't show his id, got angry and yelled, or was--in his regular life--a buttheaded jerk does not justify the wrongdoing of the police officers.

How do you suggest to have a functioning civil society if people are free to disobey lawful police orders? I don't like the Taser at all, and it is obvious that many officers are too quick to deploy it. But it is the policy of the department to issue the Taser as a non-lethal device, which is controversial in California. The officer's training is to use the Taser to quickly defuse a potentially violent situation and bring a "subject" into compliance.

Everything about the situation is dehumanizing. That a simple refusal to show ID can escalate into a violent incident so quickly is dehumanizing, like something out of a bad movie. Police policy now makes the Taser a commonly deployed tool, like we are cattle. Students in a library on their campus are subject to police checks. The issues raised by this incident are broader than what happened, maybe the outrage generated by this will help change Taser policies. But to claim that what happened to Mr. Tabatabainejad is brutality? I think that is a stretch.

Mr. Tabatabainejad decided that he was exempt from the rules that 25,000+ other students have to follow for their OWN SAFETY. UCLA is freely accessible to the millions of people who live in LA, and it is imperative that security is maintained. Showing ID is not a Gestapo-esque requirement, it is a fact of life for any urban university campus. If Mr. Tabatabainejad was putting up resistance, the officers had few options - baton, pepper-spray, pain compliance holds, Taser, etc. They are not going to go down on the floor and wrestle with him in a close environment, that would endanger everyone. They don't know his motivations or reasons for resisting - all they know is that he is actively resisting their lawful orders. Two officers couldn't just pick him up and carry him out either, as some have suggested.

This entire situation would have been avoided if Mr. Tabatabainejad had simply produced his ID as reasonably requested. Would he have protested similarly if asked for ID when entering a bar or trying to board a flight? Unlikely. In fact, asking for student ID in the Powell library after 11pm is about as innocuous a request as you can make.

Let's turn this around, like other writers have suggested. What could the officers have done differently? Stand there for an hour while Mr. Tabatabainejad plays his petulant game? Physically drag him out of the library? Call even more officers to each grab an appendage and carry him out? That's pretty dehumanizing as well. Pepper spray him? The effects of pepper spray are far longer lasting than a Taser. Let him stay in the library without producing student after being asked? Hell, let's just let all 3 million Angelenos hang out at Powell every night!

Then there is the assumption that all police officers are brutal thugs. Not true at all. Many are kind and compassionate. Some aren't - there is no disputing that. But treating all police officers as brutal thugs and enemy combatants while refusing to obey their lawful orders is just as intolerant, prejudicial, and unreasonable as assuming that all men of Middle Eastern appearance are terrorists who need to be closely monitored.

We Americans live in a civil society that is very professionally policed for the most part. These same people criticizing the cops would not hesitate to dial 911 if their lives were threatened. Just like you have to pull over when an officer puts on lights and siren, you need to obey a lawful order to leave if asked to. If there is abuse or injustice, you take that up with the legal system and the administration - which is being done. Mr. Tabatabainejad should have complied with the lawful orders and left. If he had a problem with alleged racial profiling or discrimination, he should have taken it up with the librarian and school administration. Fighting the cop on the scene will never, ever work.

Finally, Mr. Tabatabainejad, a 23-year old senior, should have been fully aware of the rules. He was solely responsible for his actions, and disobeying CSOs and police performing their lawful duties in a reasonable manner (asking to show ID and then being asked to leave) is absolutely guaranteed to result in actions detrimental to his best interests.

Was the taser appropriate? Maybe not, but we won't know that until all the facts come out. Are we as Americans free to willfully disobey the police lawfully performing their duties? Yes, but we are also free to suffer the consequences of our actions.