This YouTube video has nothing to do with sports. However I feel like I should share this video.
On Tuesday a UCLA student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad (what a name), was just chilling in the UCLA library around 11:30pm. Community service officers came around to do a routine student ID check. He did not have one. Then this is what happened.
The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the student as well.
The student began to yell “get off me,” repeating himself several times.
It was at this point that the officers shot the student with a Taser for the first time, causing him to fall to the floor and cry out in pain. The student also told the officers he had a medical condition.
He was tasered at least four more times. He curses at the cops (natural reaction) and screams “Here’s your Patriot Act!!!” Apparently he was even handcuffed throughout the whole ordeal.
Police sometimes have a uniform and badge and feel like they can abuse power. How many times have we seen they brutally attack person when it seems like the other person is not doing anything to warrant it? Then they go on the defensive by saying they do not know if a guy is armed and dangerous.
This kid was at the library on a weeknight!! How dangerous can that be?? His most dangerous weapon was probably his calculator. Okay the kid should have just gotten the hell out of there but he took too long for the police. He kept screaming for them to keep their hands off him. Boom. Tased. Then afterwards they just kept pumping the juice into his body. I’ve read enough stories of people dying from being hit. This kid is lucky.
A smart UCLA student captured this all on a cell phone (pretty good damn quality if you ask me). It has spread around the country and I believe it shows the useless need of force in this situation. Pat the kid down. Drag his ass out of there. How can two or three police not physically escort a skinny college student out of there? Is that so hard?
If this happened at let’s say in Philadelphia or Miami the other student may have gotten chairs and started a riot against the police. They outnumbered the cops and they were clearly telling them to stop tasing the kid. Instead this is UCLA so they just watched and probably went to Starbucks afterwards to talk about what just happened.
I write a sports blog so I sit in my pajamas to write about it.
Student shot with Taser by UCPD officers [Daily Bruin]
Community responds to Taser use in Powell [Daily Bruin]
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A) He should not have still been in the library when the police came back.
B) This was at UCLA campus library. We need to have tough security on our campus’ especially a large campus like UCLA.
I’m not saying they should have stunned him 4 times. I’m just looking at the other side of it. If these CSO’s walk around and check ID’s then you better have your ID on you at all times. He didn’t have his ID and should have left without incident. He stayed there and almost blew off the cops all together right then.
Both sides were wrong in some aspects.