UF student tasered for asking questions (1 Viewer)

[onebytwo]

what do you people think of the police officers' actions in this case.
personally, i thought they were excessive. sure, the guy was being a bit perverse and smart-arse, but in a sense i thought they were fair and deserved some sort of respose.
the questions: http://youtube.com/watch?v=SaiWCS10C5s
the aftermath: http://youtube.com/watch?v=7NWukZhsiBw&mode=related&search=

Student Tasered at campus forum for Kerry

GAINESVILLE, Florida (AP) -- A university student with a history of taping his own practical jokes was Tasered by campus police and arrested after loudly and repeatedly trying to ask U.S. Senator John Kerry questions during a campus forum.
Student Andrew Meyer is surrounded by university police in Gainesville, Florida, on Monday.

Andrew Meyer, 21, spent a night in jail before his release Tuesday morning. His attorney, Robert Griscti, did not return messages seeking comment.
Videos of the Monday night incident, posted on several Web sites and played repeatedly on television news, show officers pulling Meyer away from the microphone after he asks Kerry about impeaching President Bush and whether he and Bush were both members of the secret society Skull and Bones at Yale University.
"He apparently asked several questions -- he went on for quite awhile -- then he was asked to stop," university spokesman Steve Orlando said. "He had used his allotted time. His microphone was cut off, then he became upset."

As two officers take Meyer by the arms, Kerry, D-Massachusetts, can be heard saying, "That's alright, let me answer his question."
Audience members applaud, and Meyer struggles for several seconds as up to four officers try to remove him from the room. Meyer screams for help and tries to break away from officers, then is forced to the ground and officers order him to stop resisting.
As Kerry tells the audience he will answer the student's "very important question," Meyer yells at the officers to release him, crying out, "Don't Tase me, bro," just before he is shocked by the Taser. He is then led from the room, screaming, "What did I do?"
Meyer was arrested on charges of resisting an officer and disturbing the peace, according to Alachua County jail records, but the State Attorney's Office had yet to make the formal charging decision. Police recommended charges of resisting arrest with violence, a felony, and disturbing the peace and interfering with school administrative functions, a misdemeanor.
Orlando said university police would conduct an internal investigation.
"The police department does have a standard procedure for when they use force, including when they use a Taser," Orlando said. "That is what the internal investigation would address -- whether the proper procedures were followed, whether the officers acted appropriately."
Meyer was ordered released from jail Tuesday on his own recognizance.
Meyer has his own Web site and it contains several "comedy" videos that he appears in. In one, he stands in a street with a sign that says "Harry Dies" after the latest Harry Potter book was released. In another, he acts like a drunk while trying to pick up a woman in a bar.
The site also has what is called a "disorganized diatribe" attributed to Meyer that criticizes the Iraq war, the news media for not covering the conflict enough and the American public for paying too much attention to celebrity news.

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"I believe I could have handled the situation without interruption," Kerry said in a statement issued Tuesday, "but again I do not know what warnings or other exchanges transpired between the young man and the police prior to his barging to the front of the line and their intervention."
"I was not aware that a taser was used until after I left the building," Kerry's statement said. "I hope that neither the student nor any of the police were injured. I regret enormously that a good healthy discussion was interrupted."​

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/18/student.tasered.ap/

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[DeathB4Life]

the guy was being an attention whore. the two guards just wanted him to leave the place and he starts moaning and resisting.

if he would just stfu and quietly leave then everything would have been fine but if youre screaming at the top of your lungs in a room of several hundred other people then youre asking for a tasering.

if you watch it from the start as he gives the questions he sounds more like a kid arguing witha teacher while looking to see how the class reacts rather than someone who geniunely wants to know the answer. he knew he was going to stir the place up and was practically asking for a beating the way he behaved when the guards approached him in a passive manner at first.

i cant say i know what it feels like to be tasered but i have seen a few clips of it and most people just seem to go into immense pain and go silent for a few seconds while they recover. this guy screaming "OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OMG OW!" just sounded a little too sus.

 

[jimmayyy]

while i agree the guy was a wanker, why do "campus police" need tasers? they are more trouble than they are worth, all they do is inflame the situation. if the half dozen or so wannabe-pigs can't control a normal sized, non aggressive, sober nerd from a university with hand to hand stuff, put the money used to buy tasers to training them properly and the whole situation would be fine. tasers are a fucking gay solution.

 

[PrinceHarry]

Obviously uni campus needs police to taser idiot like him lol. I'd say he ask for it.

 

[ogmzergrush]

http://michellemalkin.com/2007/09/17/student-tasered-at-john-kerry-forum/

A few differing perspectives on the incident. Not as cut and dry as it seemed to start with, but then what is?

So I went to the John Kerry town hall forum this morning trying to get students registered to vote. I run a student government organization called Chomp the Vote. Anyway I went inside to watch the event. Senator Kerry took the podium and began delivering a speech about the Middle East, Iraq, dimplomacy, etc. Anyway, after he was done, a university ambassador asked Kerry a few premade questions. Once that was over, Senator Kerry announced he would take questions from the students. There were two
microphones placed on each side of the aisle. One on my side and the other on Andrew Meyer’s side. Senator Kerry began answering the student’s questions from each aisle. Eventually it was announced that there would only be a few more questions answered. Since Meyer and I were both in the back of each line, it did not seem likely that our questions would be answered.

However, while Senator Kerry was responding to a student’s question, all of a sudden Meyer rushed to the microphone with cops in pursuit. At that point no one knew what was going on. Could he have a gun, a bomb? Immediately, Meyer began yelling into the microphone that he had been waiting in line forever and that Senator Kerry should “spend time to answer everyone’s questions!” Senator Kerry tried to calm the student down by telling him that he would “stay here as long as it takes to get the questions answered.” The police approached Meyer who began taunting them by saying “what! are you going to taser me? are you going to arrest me?!” The police grabbed Meyer, but Senator Kerry asked the
police to let him go and that he would answer his question. Senator Kerry finished answering the other student’s question and then proceeded with Meyer. (*This entire scene is not in any video I can find so far. This is why 2 cops are seen right behind Meyer at the start of some videos*).

Meyer approached the microphone and began to talk about a book he had which stated that Kerry won the 2004 election because of disenfranchisement of black voters and faulty voter machines that produced “Bush” as the winner. He then posed another question about why President Bush had not been impeached. “President Clinton was impeached because of a blowjob, why not Bush?”. The third and strangest question he posed to Senator Kerry was asking him if he was part of the skull and bones society with Bush at
Yale. Meyer’s mic cut off after that, probably because he had mentioned the word “blowjob”. The cops grabbed him, but Meyer was able to get away several times. Eventually more cops were brought in to help subdue Meyer. Meyer continued to resist arrest, scream, curse; however he was enventually subdued by about six cops up around the entrance. As he is on the ground, he is told several times to put his hands around his back. He is also warned that he will be tasered if he does not comply. Eventually he is tasered twice. The video does not show whether he complied or not.

Senator Kerry was trying to answer his question to the audience, mostly the one about faulty voter machines. I am a die hard conservative Republican but I do respect Senator Kerry for trying to soothe the situation as best he could and trying not to escalate the situation. He DID intervene by letting the student at least present his question. I never received an opportunity to ask my question, but when Senator Kerry ended the show after the Meyer incident, he did come off stage to shake hands and give autographs. At that point, I was able to ask him my question, shake his hand, and get a autograph at the same time. Now why couldn’t Andrew Meyer do that?

I don’t know if this is relevant or not, but Andrew Meyer is a former sports writer for the school newspaper The Alligator. In his columns, he has been known to make ridiculous statements in order to gain attention for himself. Was today a publicity stunt?

I still don't think zapping him was called for, but it looks like he's not exactly the unsuspecting victim of random acts of police violence that he's been painted as thus far.

 

[jb_nc]

he's asking questions, get him!!!!!!!!!

 

[MaNiElla]

Off with his head!!!

 

[wuddie]

the taser was absolutely unwarranted. was he ever a physical danger to anyone inside the theatre? you give someone power, they WILL abuse it, cops are the worst offenders in this category.

having got that cleared, meyer didn't do himself any favors there by trying to give kerry a lecture. had he gone straight to the questions, he probably would have gone an answer from kerry straight away. most politicians coming to q&a forums are pretty well prepared, and they do expect some activists trying to catch them off guarded.

in the second video, meyer asked several times what he has done wrong, if the securities were any brighter, they would have said something. but no, they knew people were watching and recording, so they didn't want to make an ass out of themselves like they would. i honestly hate securities who think they are in the same rank as the cops and just look down on everyone else, especially state transit's, they are the worst.

 

[+Po1ntDeXt3r+]

if ure going to do that..
get alcohol in a watergun...
squirt it at officers..
noone will taser u then

 

[Barry_White]

Don't Tase me, bro.

 

[MissSavage29]

Mmm makes you wonder about the security guards though.

Our criminal law lecturer was telling us that Australian police have to be sprayed in the eyes with pepper spray so when they do it in a situation they are not overzealous…

Makes you wonder if they have that training for them over there - cause it seemed like they wern't really that concerned using the tazer

 

[wuddie]

the fuck was an attention whore and a pussy, you both should be related

so you're going to find every post i've made and make a retalliation, just because you can't handle the truth? get a life son.

 

[scarybunny]

Our criminal law lecturer was telling us that Australian police have to be sprayed in the eyes with pepper spray so when they do it in a situation they are not overzealous…

Yah that's true, it's part of their training that they get capsicum-sprayed, so they know what it feels like.

Why is it so unreasonable to expect people to behave like human beings and not monkeys? He was being an ass, and they quite clearly warned him. If he didn't want to be tasered MAYBE he should have done what they said. They weren't asking anything unreasonable of him. Just to behave like a normal, intelligent human being.

Maybe it's just that annoying people like this... annoy me. Taser the lot of them. Or hit them with a bag of sweet valencia oranges. It won't leave any bruises and you let them know who's boss.

 

[Graney]

Take that, free speech!

 

[_dhj_]

There are always some crazies at the end of these sort of speeches. They ask some agenda based questions that they don't expect to be answered, and they always yell at the microphone to get maximum attention. I think Andrew Meyer was one of those crazy guys. Having said that, the campus police didn't need to act in the way that they did, and they way they responded was simply outrageous.

while i agree the guy was a wanker, why do "campus police" need tasers? they are more trouble than they are worth, all they do is inflame the situation. if the half dozen or so wannabe-pigs can't control a normal sized, non aggressive, sober nerd from a university with hand to hand stuff, put the money used to buy tasers to training them properly and the whole situation would be fine. tasers are a fucking gay solution.

I agree. But I think they shouldn't have tried to arrest him in the first place. The whole situation simply looks bad. They must have known that people were videotaping the thing, and that the incident would be broad-casted etc. In other words the campus 'police' were idiots.

 

[williams180]

fair enough action u cant have lunactics like that guy taking their freedom of speech that far gotta come down hard on people who act like that

 

[Azamakumar]

So effectively you're removing a constitutional right?

 

[williams180]

So effectively you're removing a constitutional right?

wat a constutional right to cause mayhem and impose on others personal freedom please if one acts like a lunatic they get treated like one its what we do ok. You would be happy if everyone just did wat they felt would u

 

[Azamakumar]

He was talking and the microphone taken from him, you would know that if you were literate. He was told to stop speaking. He continued, exercising his right to do so, and was arrested, despite Kerry asking them to let him continue so that he could answer the questions.

You really are a fucking idiot, they chose to get bad publicity for violence rather than political flaws.

 

[williams180]

He was talking and the microphone taken from him, you would know that if you were literate. He was told to stop speaking. He continued, exercising his right to do so, and was arrested, despite Kerry asking them to let him continue so that he could answer the questions.

You really are a fucking idiot, they chose to get bad publicity for violence rather than political flaws.

his right to do so. You are kidding if everyone exercised their right to do watever they felt the whole world would be in complete turmoil quite obviously you have some type of world view of liberalising everything and promoting open anarchism. Youre a joke he was kindly asked to stop speaking and continued to disobey authority if people think that is ok they will take it further and further and authority will not be respected

lol and your that loser who owes me two houses cause u thought u had better economics marks and posted up 87% lol who posts such shit marks on BOS anyway