Though I'm sure he thought he was striking a blow against oppression, the student was being a tool.

But there seems to be this trend in law enforcement and security where, if a suspect doesn't comply immediately with orders and requests, it's taser (or shoot) first and ask questions later.

Sometimes, you don't understand exactly what it is the cops are asking you to do. And sometimes the reason for that is that you're agitated. Or you're mentally ill. Anyone know if this kid smoked a J or something before hitting the books? (I'm betraying my age.)

Several years ago, LAPD shot and killed an elderly homeless woman who was mentally ill. The reason? The cops were trying to arrest her for stealing a shopping cart, she became agitated and threatened them with a screwdriver. A screwdriver? Whatever happened to getting out the way and letting this person exhaust themselves?

If this incident hadn't escalated to the point that it did, I'd say the kid needs to be hauled before the Dean of Students and punished. Now, I think the kid needs to be handed a modest check, admonished about acting like a privileged wiseass and sent back to class.

And the Security cops need to be fired without severance and diverted into an anger management program. How stupid and unprofessional can you possibly be?

First of all, it's unclear whether these "cops" are even cops or just UCLA security, which makes them even more culpabale.

More importantly, we have laws and common law in this country about proportional force. For example, to claim the self-defense defense, in most places, you have to show that you used proprtional force to counteract the threat you perceived. IF someone is coming at you wtih a plastic force, and you shoot them with your gun, you won't be able to claim self-defense.

So, the same thing applies to cops. The supreme court has ruled that cops don't have a blank check: for example, cops cannot shoot to kill a suspect who is fleeing arrest for a felony charge. REad about it here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2131373/?nav/tap3/

I'm not familiar with all the specific case law, but it seems that with the unaided eye/ear, the cops definitely did not use proportional force.

What kind of police state has this country become, where not showing ID upon request is cause for being beaten and electrocuted?! And people nod their heads in agreement?

And I would have screamed my a** off too if four bullies had attacked and electrocuted me simply because I couldn't prove who I was.

Then again, being white, I wouldn't even have been asked.

Then again, being white, I wouldn't even have been asked.

Actually, in a college campus library you're goddamn right you would have.

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. 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.

To the person whose socially conservative WWII vet grandfather would have given the cops a wallop: *my* socially conservative WWII vet grandfather would have been cheering them on because BOY! did he hate spoiled overly-entitled brats who didn't immediately acknowledge and respect people in authority, so I'm not sure what point you were trying to prove there. Having grandpas who fought in wars doesn't give you or I any particular authority -- moral or otherwise -- on this situation.

As apu famously said to homer, " I don't know which part of that sentence to correct first." The whole last paragraph of your post betrays such a lack of understanding of any concept of individual rights and protection of citizens from government's power, that you may be beyond help.

The last paragraph of my post pointed out that the grandfathers who fought in World War II were a fairly diverse bunch of men; being one doesn't bestow much moral authority, and having one bestows even less -- none, I would argue.

The middle paragraph was the one I think you meant to argue with. The funny thing is, my hardline grandfather managed to raise a brood of liberal hippies, and I am the progeny of the eldest boy. I was reared up surrounded by peaceniks and activists who made a practice of protesting military development in my part of the state, who made my hometown a "nuclear free zone" meaning that nuclear materials could not be transported on town roads, and who defied government authority by smuggling and hiding illegal immigrants on the run from war-ravaged Central American countries. They were arrested, they were beaten, they went to jail. The lesson I learned from them is this, if I may paraphrase from a Robert Anton Wilson novel (which should tell you a great deal about me): the greatest freedom a man has is to say "No" and accept the consequences.

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.

One more thing: the use of tasers, batons, rubber bullets, beanbags, pepper spray, teargas, and the like is not for the purposes of "self defense". They are used for *control* -- control of one person, control of crowds, control of the situation. They couldn't have used pepper spray since they were in an enclosed space and would have wound up pepper-spraying everyone around them by default. They don't use batons anymore (do they?) and you don't shoot beanbags or rubber bullets at people at point-plank range without killing them (cf. Victoria Snelgrove who was killed after the Sox won the pennant when shot with a beanbag that was aimed above the waist contrary to directed use and training). 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.

And I still would have slapped my Bio textbook across the fucker's jaw.