The outrageous abuse of power in a UCLA library is about more than just brutish police repeatedly attacking a student with a Taser. Equally important is the catalyst for this confrontation:
According to a campus police report, the incident began when community service officers, who serve as guards at the library, began their nightly routine of checking to make sure everyone using the library after 11 p.m. is a student or otherwise authorized to be there.
Campus officials said the long-standing policy was adopted to ensure students’ safety.
When Tabatabainejad, 23, refused to provide his ID to the community service officer, the officer told him he would have to show it or leave the library, the report said.
Like docile sheep, too many Americans buy these arguments.
On campus Wednesday, many students said they were surprised by news of the incident.
“UCLA is a very peaceful campus,” said Chen Mei, a third-year political science student from Laguna Hills. “I study in Powell Library at night all the time. I’ve seen people without ID cards who are removed. But none of the time has it been this dramatic.”
Karen Jou, a second-year student from Orange, said the campus police “usually are really good.”
“I wouldn’t have thought that would have happened here,” she said. “It’s really odd.”
Julia Newbold, a third-year English literature major from Walnut Creek, said her impression from her limited contact with campus police was good.
“They seem like a peacekeeping force,” she said. “I’m really surprised to hear they had to resort to something like that. It sounds a little too forceful to me to Taser someone.”
HAD TO?!?! PEACEKEEPING FORCE?!?!
All of this, in a supposedly free country.
Afraid of drunk drivers? Please submit to random checkpoints happily … after all, it will keep you safe.
Think you have the right to travel freely within the borders of this free nation? Better be ready to identify yourself when near the US/Canadian border, or if you are within certain areas of the desert Southwest. It’s not an intrusion, NO, we NEED to allow our law enforcement officers to keep us safe from terrorists and drugs! After all, what do you have to hide?
Planning on traveling overseas? You may need permission first, even to take your love on a cruise ship.
As we come closer and closer to requiring national ID cards, as our corrupt political establishment seeks to limit the right to vote, demanding ID cards to carry out the most basic freedom in a democracy, how can we as a people so blithely submit to this growing, insidious encroachment?
We surrender to these demands, empowering people with weapons and badges to enforce greater and greater restrictions on our movements, our civil liberties, our ability to act as free citizens. We surrender to people who often have disturbing histories of abusing their authority, resulting in injury and death when some hapless citizen rouses their ire. We surrender to the watchmen, and then act surprised when they abuse their power. Just ask some of the students at UCLA:
During the altercation between Tabatabainejad and the officers, bystanders can be heard in the video repeatedly asking the officers to stop and requesting their names and identification numbers. The video showed one officer responding to a student by threatening that the student would “get Tased too.” At this point, the officer was still holding a Taser.
He’s keeping them safe, after all, and how DARE you question how he chooses to exercise his “protective” actions?
“I realize when looking at these kind of arrest tapes that they don’t always show the full picture. … But that six minutes that we can watch just seems like it’s a ridiculous amount of force for someone being escorted because they forgot their BruinCard,” said Ali Ghandour, a fourth-year anthropology student.
“It certainly makes you wonder if something as small as forgetting your BruinCard can eventually lead to getting Tased several times in front of the library,” he added.
Edouard Tchertchian, a third-year mathematics student, said he was concerned that the student was not offered any other means of showing that he was a UCLA student.
Whether you’re walking down the street and you happen upon a cop who thinks you might be drunk, or you’re going to the library or driving or using public transportation, you’d better be careful if a man with a uniform, badge and weapon demands that you prove that you have the right to be doing what you’re doing, that you can show who you are. You’d better be especially careful if you’re of middle-eastern dissent, or black, or hispanic, for failing to respond quickly enough, or to have an ID on you rather than forgotten on your dresser at home, or you could be in for a beating, or “non-lethal” torture, or even death.
All of this, here in the land of the free. Show that ID, or else …