Revisionism is an art form. From what I saw, it appears that Mr. Kerry was on stage during the process. I wonder if his aides did not indicate to the police that the disturbed young man (a disturbed person is a disturbing person) should be removed.

The young man apparently is short on the social graces, and believes that he can coopt a forum set up with certain rules and that he has an entitlement to override anyone else's opportunity to make a presentation. He reminds me to some extent of Sally Fields and the Emmy presentation, where an event set up as PR for an industry, and more effective for that purpose if it does not arouse antagonisms, together with sponsors paying for advertising, both had their interests considered secondary to that of the interloper as both were unceremoniously ignored by an egotistic person, whose evaluation of that person's own value and the import of his view, was so important that it superseded all other interests, and entitled the egotist to appropriate a forum.

In both instances, the egotist, a student political activist and an entertainment community political activist, had an exaggerated view of the importance of their particular views to others. I suppose that political activism connotes a sense of superiority and the need to promulgate "the truths" apparent to the activist, but that most of the unwashed do not properly discern. I suspect that at a plumbers' convention, a speaker would not have been inspired to disseminate content of his political position when accepting an award for expertise in setting toilets. The political activists seem so self-centered and engaged that they are at best, discourteous, or more descriptively downright rude.

All that said, the portion of video clips that I saw began with the young man shouting that he should be permitted to continue to make a statement/ask a question. Selective editing may have distorted the situation. Without addressing the appropriateness of his presentation, which resulted in the confrontation, it seemed to me that at that point he had been sufficiently compliant to have been led away. One of the problems may have been the revision of standards for police ranks that admits smaller weaker people, so that they have recourse to more violent methods in subduing people. A study made after these lowered physical standards were introduced showed that females were far more likely to resort to deadly force than male officers, who had greater physical prowess and thus were able to subdue suspects without resort to deadly force.

The resort by the female officer to use of a Taser, when the man was subdued, seemed an excessive use of force, meriting punishment. Again, although the clips that I saw were edited, if they did represent the event properly, the initial use of force commencing at that time, was unwarranted. It seemed as if the use of force by the campus police, were they, constituted an assault and battery at the time of physical engagement, an unprivileged harmful or offensive touching with the police subject to sanctions for unnecessary use of force. Since they were operating under color of office, there also may have been a federal criminal civil rights violation.

The docility of the student body was remarkable and possibly the most troubling aspect of the matter.

The Terrorists hate America because of your freedoms.

>>He says he left the building before the kid got zapped, but it sure didn't seem like it looking at the video.<<

I see some posts say this but my understanding is that Sen. Kerry said he left the building before he HEARD the kid got tasered, not before the kid got tasered. Set the record straight.

...Kerry's press release claims he wasn't AWARE of the tasering until after he left the scene--not that the tasering ocurred after he left the scene.

I know this isn't as convenient for all of you out to vent on Kerry here, but if we mis-represent and they mis-represent this just becomes one huge pissing match.

(Oh but then I see it already is anyway--silly me.)

Myer's "crime" was immaturity. He crowded to the front of the line, he did not use his inside voice, and he threw in one profane term for emphasis. Since when is being long winded and impolite ample cause for being repeatedly zapped with 50,000 volts? Well, too often, lately, as we've seen. We all know that tazers can and do kill people. "Being a danger to oneself or others" is that magical sequence of words that is supposed to help cops make this judgement call to escalate to a new level of force. With four or five cops on top of Myers, the crowd was hardly in "danger." This was excessive force, pure and simple.

Having watched the video, Kerry's claim that he had left the building before the tazering is unbelievable. Moments before the unmistakable bright flash and loud punching sound happened repeatedly, while Myers yelled, "OW, OW, OW!!!" Kerry was still droning on in the background! Within seconds of the first tazer shot, a woman started yelling loudly for the police to stop. Unless Kerry had his eyes closed while he droned on, and was floating out the window of the auditorium in an out of body experience of oblivion, he had to have seen and heard all this. In fact, a student's observations, quoted here, placed Kerry in the building answering questions after all the tazering, and signing autographs.

Kerry is a major weenie. He could have put a stop to this. And in "explaining" later what happened, he could have had the balls to tell the truth.

More deeply disturbing than this incident is the pattern that it reveals. The audience's passive, giggling reaction is anti-democratic, and pro-authority. Many of the posts to this site seem similar: they focus on the student's motivations, and some seem to imply that if he was "seeking attention," he deserved what he got! Do we have to meet a test for measured, well modulated speech before we can exercise it? It would seem that is how we are moving.

It's good to have someone who was actually there write objectively about the incident. I'm sure you're correct about the former sportswriter wanting attention - he'll probably end up on Fox News, detailing how HE was the innocent victim of the John Kerry police state. It seems that all the RW responders to this article seem to think that already (not that Fox has anything to do with that.)

Thanks again. Peace.