Leaving aside the legal issues for a minute I would like to address some misinformation about tasers that seems to be around mostly because of hollywood("exit wounds"), which show a police taser in drive stun mode supposedly having a stun level setting switch?.

Such a taser exists only in fantasy, ALL current and previous released models of taser.com line of tasers have the power setting fixed at the factory, ie ITS NOT adjustable in the field. The only discretion the officer has at his disposal is how long to keep the switch depressed. And the time of firing as well as the number of times the trigger was pulled are recorded in current taser models. Additionally a "taser cam" power cartridge can be mounted instead of the regular power cartridge that will provide up to 1.5 hours of b/w video and audio evidentiary recording for the taser it is used on including the actual dart deployment itself on current models.

Additionally the officers were using the taser in"drive stun mode" ie the firing cartridge(which shoots 2 wired barbed darts up to 35ft(depending on cartridge) was NOT mounted.

How is this important?

Human skin when dry has a fairly high resistance, this severly limits the amount of current that the muscles will

absorb with each pulse, so using a taser in drivestun mode wont be nearly as painful as getting a barbed dart embedded in you skin and then having the same taser pulse hit you.

While human skin has a high resistance outside, underneath the epidermis the skin has a resistance of only a few hundred ohms(blood and lymph ARE good conductors with resistance of only a few hundred ohms).

What this means is that the amount of current that the muscles will absorb has gone way up per pulse,

And the same pulse that would only be painful in drive stun mode could become possibly fatal on occasion when used with the taser cartridge mounted.(depending on dart positioning on the human body.)

How do I know all this?

I have accidentally shot myself with the original "stick" tasers 2 time with full dart penetration in groin on the first accident, and on the right side of the abdomen in the second incident(the stick model had a badly designed safety)

I also am an owner of the X26c(civilian model) and carry it daily.

Use of a taser in drivestun mode or pepper spray against a passively resisting subject is TORTURE pure and simple.

The Campus police should have simply picked him up bodily and carried him out or called paramedics for a gurney and taken him for mental observation(5150 hold) if they thought that was the issue.

anonymous

ps NO I dont work for taser, I just am a civilian that carries their product daily in Oakland California,(concealed weapons permits are REAL hard to come by in Kalifornia for civilians)

tasers are quite legal here for civilians.

I would like to point out several facts about this incident that people seem to be missing.

To the people who state that they can't judge the UCPD for their actions because the video starts after the provocation; There were at least 50 eye witnesses in the computer lab, and none has come forward, to my knowledge, to state that the event was anything but an instance of police brutality against an outraged student who was loud, but not a threat to anyone, much less against two, and then six armed and burley officers. Multiple eye witnesses have stated in the press that the student was leaving of his own accord when the officers grabbed him.

To the Readers who say that Tabatabainejad deserved what he got because he forgot his ID and didn't promptly leave, and that the officers were correct to taser him 5 times to remove him from the building; would the officers have been in the right to beat him with a baton? Would they have been absolved by you for shooting the student in the leg, non-lethal by court standards, and then dragging him out? The use of and abuse of force was unwarranted in this situation. The student was being non-cooperative, but he was hardly a threat of any kind to the officers. The fact that they taser his repeatedly, and then again after cuffing the student, is pure brutality against an unarmed and non-threatening subject. I'm ashamed of your abuse of logic.

Lastly, I'd like to point out that the readers who commend the students present for their restraint are correct, although since the UCLA administration immediately closed ranks with the offending officers, I would add the caviat that those less than lethal tasers may be less than effective against a marching student body and closed university offices.

The offending officers should be immediately brought up on charges of assault and battery, for the tasering of the student and the threat of violence against the students asking for their identification.

The UCLA administration should be shamed for their foot dragging and anti-student stance.

-Tim Noble

Philadelphia, PA

Next, let's discuss videos of police groping a woman during an arrest. Then maybe one of them raping her. Let's discuss a video of some terrorist suspect being tortured. Maybe we could watch a video of Jose Padilla being interrogated while high on LSD he was probably forced to take. I guess we kind of already did that with the Abu Ghraib photos.

My point is, it's scary and incredibly surprising how much deference Salon's readership is willing to give to the police (or other state authority figure). Even faced wtih repreated screaming, the sound of the taser tasering, the officer threatening an onlooker, a surprisingly large amount of people say that the police acted correctly. So my question is, how many people would stand behind the police raping a terror suspect? Punching him or her while he or she is tied to a chair? At what point would you say the police is oversteoping the line, or can the police do whatever they want?