University of Florida student Tasered at Kerry forum

[Case Closed]

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More about 15 minutes of fame guy from the Washington Post:


"This was not Meyer's first escapade as a provocateur, but it may be his most physically punishing. As a freshman his weekly columns for the Alligator, the campus newspaper, regularly prompted debate. "He would take an idea such as a fundraiser for cancer research, and would bash the way the whole event would go down," wrote Meyer's friend Brandon Crone in an e-mail, noting that some of Meyer's articles were rejected for publication because of their incendiary material.

Some have speculated that his penchant for attention (his e-mail handle is "famouswriterman") led him to stage the outburst to draw traffic to his Web site, http://www.theandrewmeyer.com, a mishmash of political commentary, sketch comedy and filmed practical jokes. On Meyer's Facebook wall, his friends' good wishes are half-horrified, half-admiring.

"Meyer, you are a genius," writes one fan. "Just don't go on Larry King yet wait till you get millions first."

Asked about speculation that Meyer staged the confrontation, university spokesman Steve Orlando said in an interview that someone in the Office of Student Affairs told him Meyer brought his own video camera to the forum, handing it to a friend before rising to ask his question."

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That site is terrible. This kid is terrible. I hate attention whores like this. We have a kid like that here at WIU. Except he is pro-war and shows up to every anti-war event on campus tries to take away from what we are doing and absorb the attention for himself. He also appear at the yearly KOS convention and was almost kicked out of that for doing what this kid did to a panel of military personal who stood out against the Iraq war. They did not pull him out and tazer him, but dragging out a veteran in tazering him from a KOS convention would have gone over pretty badly.

[govman6767]

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tasers can and have killed people.

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so has beating someone into submission, what do you think is more likely to kill someone?

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utter brilliance, here... newsflash. beating someone (the loudmouth idiot, in this case) into submission would have been wrong too.

read the thread.

keeps you from looking like you just pieced something out from somebody's post, to add nothing of substance...

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Reality Check you need....... yessss (Yoda Voice)

[CORed]

I think this is clearly excessive force on the part of the police. The guy definitely deserved to be arrested, but the taser was not necessary to accomplish this. The guy was an obnoxious, uncooperative jerk to be sure, but I saw absolutely nothing to indicate that he was a threat to injure the police or anybody else. He had no weapon and threw no punches. He was resisting the efforts of the police to subdue and arrest him to be sure, but not in a manner that posed any threat of bodily harm to the police. If the three officers visible in the video couldn't get the cuffs on him, they could have called for backup.

A taser is a potentially lethal weapon. There have been quite a few deaths from tasers, mostly people who were either extremely high on speed or coke, or had some sort of heart defect. To be sure, it's pretty damn rare for a taser to kill somebody, but IMO, even this small risk means it should only be used in self defense situations, not as a means to force compliance. If this jerk takes a swing at the cops, or even an elbow, I would have no problem with their use of a taser.

[IQ89]

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the taser should have never come out and they will suffer the consequences, i believe. and they should.

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What "they should" have done was taser his privates, like one of the guys on Jackass did (F___ing hilarious).

[TempusFugit]

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Tempus,

I am very interested to hear exactly what you think John Kerry should have done here. Please do better than you did in OOT.

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If Kerry just went down the stage and had a simple word with the cops, they would have let him go. You can be certain that his word in that context has this kind of authority.

Also, I'm sure this would have scored him a lot of sympathy points as it would show that he takes democracy very seriously even if it becomes uncomfortable. This alone would have somewhat refuted the allusion that Kerry was not defending democracy properly in the Florida case.

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What should the cops have done instead of tasering? Beating the kid up?

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First of all, early in the video you see one of the cops simply carrying the kid for a couple of meters. That certainly would have done the job.
Secondly, they could have just waited a little. He is bound to calm down if they just hold him down for a while and talk some sense into him instead of shouting orders.
Finally, the guy himself said that he'll walk out on his own if they just let go of him. Nothing easier than that!

By the way, it strikes me as very strange that everyone here seems to take it for granted that one absolutely needs to put cuffs on the guy in order to escort him out. He's is clearly not violent towards anyone. And he's certainly not a threat to the 8 or so cops standing around him.

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George Orwell
If democracy means anything, it is the right to tell people things they don't want to hear.

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[manbearpig]

Here is the timeline I see:

1) Dude plans this whole deal. Has video camera, cops are after him before he even asks his question, overall attention whore.

2) His question is clearly agenda driven and meant to be inflammatory and not informative.

3) Female cop asks him to stop. He resists and says the whole he has been talking for two hours bit.

4) He continues inflammatory questioning so they cut his mike. He flips out.

5) Cops try to escort him out of the building. He resists by jumping around and yelling. Eventually they get him on the ground.

6) He wont let himself be handcuffed. The cop says quit resisting or I will Taser you. He continues. He gets Tasered.

7) Resolution.


Where am I missing something? In my opinion they should have tasered him when we was jumping up and down. A simple "Lets go or you are getting Tasered" should be all that is necessarry. Whether you feel your arrest is justified or not, physically fighting with a cop is a no go.

[Money2Burn]

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Here is the timeline I see:

1) Dude plans this whole deal. Has video camera, cops are after him before he even asks his question, overall attention whore.

2) His question is clearly agenda driven and meant to be inflammatory and not informative.

3) Female cop asks him to stop. He resists and says the whole he has been talking for two hours bit.

4) He continues inflammatory questioning so they cut his mike. He flips out.

5) Cops try to escort him out of the building. He resists by jumping around and yelling. Eventually they get him on the ground.

6) He wont let himself be handcuffed. The cop says quit resisting or I will Taser you. He continues. He gets Tasered.

7) Resolution.


Where am I missing something? In my opinion they should have tasered him when we was jumping up and down. A simple "Lets go or you are getting Tasered" should be all that is necessarry. Whether you feel your arrest is justified or not, physically fighting with a cop is a no go.

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good post

[PLOlover]

2 questions

a) didn't you think his questions were good? people like chris matthews thought they were good qauestions.

b) how long did he talk total? seriously. I would guess maybe 90 seconds max?

c) were you aware of the points he brought up about kerry probably winning ohio, and knowing that, he conceded anway, right away?

[BCPVP]

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If Kerry just went down the stage and had a simple word with the cops, they would have let him go. You can be certain that his word in that context has this kind of authority.

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Uh, no? A senator from another state doesn't have authority to order the police around. Maybe that's how it works in Europe, but it doesn't work that way here.

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Secondly, they could have just waited a little. He is bound to calm down if they just hold him down for a while and talk some sense into him instead of shouting orders.
Finally, the guy himself said that he'll walk out on his own if they just let go of him. Nothing easier than that!

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He's under arrest. He doesn't get to decide how he'll leave after he's violently resisted previous attempts.

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By the way, it strikes me as very strange that everyone here seems to take it for granted that one absolutely needs to put cuffs on the guy in order to escort him out. He's is clearly not violent towards anyone. And he's certainly not a threat to the 8 or so cops standing around him.

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This is more hindsight, second guessing. You put someone in cuffs so they're no longer a danger to the officers and they're easier to move. Also, when the two officers begin to escort him out, he reacts pretty violently and he was struggling quite a bit on the ground. Certainly an officer could get punched or kicked, even inadvertently, while trying to wrestle with him not to mention this guy getting a joint injured while trying to pull it out of their grasp.

[Case Closed]

manbearpig,

You forgot the part where Kerry said he would answer the question. And the first portion was very informative and Kerry should be answering questions about him conceding the 2004 election.

Also, his jumping and yelling was him yelling that he is not resisting.