Here we go again. Law enforcement using a tool meant for use against violent out-of-control individuals being used inappropriately.
A University of Florida student attended a forum by John Kerry. He rambled on for a while asking several questions of the senator, including why Kerry capitulated so quickly in the 2004 election when it was clear voting hanky-panky was going on. He went on at length and then police dragged Andrew Meyer, 21, out of the venue and tased him outside the hall:
From coverage of the event:
As two officers take Meyer by the arms, Kerry, D-Mass., is heard to say, "That's alright, let me answer his question." Audience members applaud, and Meyer struggles to escape for several seconds as up to four officers try to remove him from the room.Meyer screams for help and asks "What did I do?" as he tries to break away from officers. He is forced to the ground and officers order him to stop resisting. Meyer says he will walk out if the officers let him go.
As Kerry tells the audience he will answer the student's "very important question," Meyer struggles on the ground and yells at the officers to release him, crying out, "Don't Tase me, bro," just before he is Tasered. He is then led from the room, screaming, "What did I do?"
He was charged with resisting an officer and disturbing the peace.Kerry condemned the action:
“In 37 years of public appearances, through wars, protests and highly emotional events, I have never had a dialogue end this way,” Kerry said in a statement. “I believe I could have handled the situation without interruption, but 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 asked the police to allow me to answer the question and was in the process of responding when he was taken into custody.”***“I was not aware that a taser was used until after I left the building,” he continued. “I hope that neither the student nor any of the police were injured. I regret enormously that a good healthy discussion was interrupted.”
And in a story that has received little coverage outside NYC, a veteran of the NYPD says his son was tased by cops four times during a community barbecue for no apparent reason, and beat him 15 times with a nightstick and choked him. (NYDN):
Hat tip, Too Sense.Retired Lt. Alexander Lombard said his son, Alexander Lombard 3rd, 17, was beaten by cops after they arrived at a "community sponsored" barbecue at 126th St. and Park Ave. last month.
"He's truly dismayed by the whole thing," Lombard said, standing next to his son in front of Police Headquarters in lower Manhattan. "He grew up with cops. He was raised to trust cops."
But Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said in a statement that a police sergeant "employed a Taser against the suspect's ankle" to subdue him after responding to a large disturbance at about 3:30 a.m.
…"The mere fact that he was hit with a Taser four times," Leader said, "and there's no resisting arrest charge, no criminal possession of a weapons charge - it's evident to me that this incident did not justify use of a stun gun."
78 Responses to “Police taser parties”
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“I love the smell of
napalmtasing in the morning. Smells likevictoryFascism…”Well, they keep saying everything changed after 9/11. I guess they were right.
According to the geniuses currently running this country into a ditch, our founding fathers must have been idiots. We don’t need freedom, we need a police state…
Somewhere Thomas Jefferson is turning in his grave…
I wish the police would taser all the Christians handing out New Testaments today at the University of Nebraska.
/snark
I wish police would use batons deadly force on all of the Christofascists.
I saw this running on Fox this morning as well- disgusting. It’s going to take someone getting injured and suing for these devices to be banned and discarded…
There’s crowd control- and then there’s abuse. These little buggers are evil.
Oh! Going off-topic… one good things came out of Nebraska recently- anyone catch the lawsuit Ernie Chambers (D-Neb) has filed, suing God??
You know, I remember a time when universities were considered a place of debate…
My interpretation of the story is that Kerry was going to answer him and was saying, meekly, that it was unnecessary to remove him. It’s just that, like the rest of the crowd, he didn’t seem to put up much resistance to this behavior by security. I think people (even those who are against this sort of thing) are starting to get accustomed to cops just being able to wisk away inconvenient people at rallies or speeches, which is scary in itself.
To every local police department in the country: Someone please taser wingnuts protesting outside abortion clinics. It’s highly overdue.
Pam - thanks for posting this. This is really serious.
Anyone remember the student who was in a computer lab who wouldn’t leave when he couldn’t present a student ID pass to the lab attendant, and he got tasered - I think it was six times - by local police when they arrived at the lab?
One of the democratic presidential candidates - or several, actually - need to get out in front of this. People cannot be tasered for speaking out at political events, even if they resist removal from a venue. It poses a chilling efect on speech which is just horrible. And watching that video - I’m going to forward it to several people - I’m struck by how none of the people in the room got up to help him until he was already screaming from the electrocution. Kerry shouldn’t have stayed behind the podium. He should have gone down there and helped that student. Frankly, if you get into politics, you should expect hecklers, questions from people who disagree with you, questions from people who agree with you but think you’re a loser, hostile questions, hostile environments… the works. Politicians shouldn’t need protection from political questions. If every forum is just going to be a lovefest where people lob softballs at politicos and talk about how much they respect them, what’s the point of the forum in the first place? Send a hallmark card instead.
It’s a rather good example of Kerry’s rather pronounced moral cowardice. (He has the same problem that George HW Bush has: startlingly brave physical courage, very suspect ability to adhere to principle.) All Kerry had to do was shout “leave him alone!”, giving an order to do so and the cops would have either (a) backed off, or (b) kept going and shown even more vividly where America is going.
“Resisting arrest”. Is it just me, or are we getting to the stage when we see “resisting arrest” on a charge sheet arising out of a political situation we should automatically scan for wrongful arrest and excessive force? Seriously.
Well, apparently tasors are probably too much fun not to use.
/Sarconal Drip
It’s going to be even more FUN when wholesale resistance to the police starts happening.
Anyone remember the student who was in a computer lab who wouldn’t leave when he couldn’t present a student ID pass to the lab attendant, and he got tasered - I think it was six times - by local police when they arrived at the lab?
It was at UCLA, and they were campus cops, not LAPD. Which makes it worse in my mind — if you can’t handle unruly students without using force, you shouldn’t work on a college campus.
Part of the problem is that tasering is not deadly force, so cops don’t think twice about doing it — after all, you’re unlikely to kill the person, so why not cut to the chase and do it instead of all of that talking and negotiating you’d otherwise be forced to do?
I had an opportunity to work on a program developing “Less than Lethal” weapons while I was casting about for a new job. I decided against it in part because I felt that the devices would probably not be used as an intermediate step before escalating to firearms but rather as a routine part of crowd control.
The essential problem with things like tasers is that they are supposedly harmless (despite the fact that people do die from their use), so cops are tempted to use them when a little persistence in giving verbal instructions would work.
This is a win-win-win situation for the right wing. It will be interesting to see how different outlets report this:
1) Look at what a fraidy cat John Kerry is, he won’t even stand up when an innocent man is being abused by security! Liberals are more concerned for the rights of terrorists at Gitmo than Americans at home!
2) Look at what a meanie John Kerry is, he had an innocent man abused by security just for disagreeing with him! See, Liberals are the intolerant ones!
Had John Kerry rushed to the man’s defense:
1) Look at what an anarchist John Kerry is, he interfered with security’s efforts to subdue a belligerent man. You can’t trust those Liberals to stand for law and order, or to protect us from the Islamofascists!
Which spin will BOR, Hannity, Limbaugh and others take?
The stance that all far-right authoritarians take: “He didn’t submit to authority, he deserved it.”
Mnemosyne - thanks for the correction.
As for the right wing Kerry spin, there is another more subtle take on it that you missed. Tucker Carlson’s and the MSNBC reporter joked about how it was the only interesting thing to ever happen when Kerry spoke. Points for subtlety, at least, even though mocking Kerry for being a dullard is a rather easy mark.
togolosh,
It’s okay. Someone else with a more cruel disposition undoubtedly filled the available position.
Holy shit, Ernie Chambers is awesome! (here’s the link)
Sorry, but I’m off to John Q TV.
“Resisting an officer” has always seemed like a perfect Catch-22 charge to me. You’re being arrested for not wanting to be arrested.
The guy does come off as a rude, grandstanding loudmouth, but I don’t see a justification for forcibly removing him from the room. The essential debate about appropriate use of “crowd control” devices aside, the very fact that the police intervened with no obvious warning is what bothers me here.
norbizness,
Haha! Isn’t that tiresome? Open-advertising policy at Pandagon aside, you’d think that the advertisers would want to target a somewhat friendlier group of eyes. *eyeroll* Though, I don’t see the moderation queue… maybe there are a million bubbling trolls beneath the surface, clicking right on through…
Tell ya what: if those same cops arrest Rush Limbaugh we’ll call it a wash.As for the Lombard story, I was a little surprised to see in Pam’s summary that the son of a policeman was subject to this treatment. I kind of figured there would be a sort of “family,” take-care-of-our-own mentality in the police community.
Then as I started the video, I thought: I bet he’s black.
Yep. Hard to say without hearing more details about the incident, but it sounds like Alexander Lombard got tased for Partying While Black.
“Tell ya what: if those same cops arrest Rush Limbaugh we’ll call it a wash.”
It’s tazer-riffic!
***
“Non-lethal” weapons = Fewer police shootings/deaths
…but…
“Non-lethal” weapons = Far more potential for frequent use and abuse
And never forget that the use of dogs and firehoses during the ’60’s civil rights marches were considered “non-lethal”/humane at the time, and the use of “rubber bullets” in Northern Ireland and elsewhere was considered the same.
Ask any of the victims of those attacks (the ones still living) how they felt about their use…
There have already been quite a few deaths from Tasers.
Whatever happened to the good ol days, when the cops would just whip out the night sticks and crack some skulls?
As much oxycontin as he eats I doubt the tazer will do much. Besides, they’d never be able to get the burnt pork rinds smell out of their noses.
You know, this is one thing that really pisses me off about cops: If I walked into a party and tasered the fuck out of someone, I’d face far more dire consequences than any cop doing the same thing. Cops have great power — we’ve kind of agreed to grant them that, as civilian citizens — but they don’t have the same shackles of responsibility for their actions.
Given this massive amount of power they hold (which, well, comes mostly in the form of a bunch of guns all reinforcing each other), when they fuck up, it should carry even more serious a consequence than if a regular citizen fucks up. If I would go to jail for a year for needlessly tasering someone, a cop should go to jail for five. This might help deflate the power trip just a little.
It’s still scary that we actually let the types of people who WANT to be cops actually be cops, but it’s hard to solve that one.
J CRowley: I hear you. Have you ever read Radley Balko’s “Justice Scalia’s New Professionalism Updates” over at theagitator.com? He is superb at collecting these Cops Gone Crazy stories and demonstrating that there really is no accountability for these bozos.
Huh, no, haven’t heard of it. I’ll check it out, thanks. (’Course, it’ll probably lead me to needing prescription meds to deal with my blood pressure, but…)
The Campus Police are accountable to the University Administration, aren’t they? Watch to see what happens.
Amnesty International has a very detailed review of the excessive use of tasers. Apparently there were 61 deaths caused or complicated by taser use in 2006 and the number has been rising for the past several years. There’s even a case they site where one man was tasered 19 times.
It seems a significant factor in the use of tasers is that many police departments have policies where they’re used in low-risk situations, or for reasons other than a suspect attempting to flee arrest or risking violence. They treat taser use like it’s appropriate for low-level law enforcement needs, when it’s not. It’s a lethal weapon.
While you’re collecting these things, here’s one from Pittsburgh:
Tasered at his own home. Man gets home late and a little drunk, falls asleep on his sofa fully-dressed. He forgets to turn off his silent alarm, so the alarm company notifies the cops — who burst into his house and wake him up by tasering him.
And oh yes, surprise surprise, he’s black.
Damian said:
It’s not just far-right authoritarians. Did you check out the comment thread at Dailykos? Very instructive. Some asshole was even quoting Mario Savio and arguing in support of the cops.
seeker6079 said:
This made me smile a lot. I am in favor of this suggestion.
murcielago:
I thought that was pretty cool too when I first saw it … but apparently the reason he’s bringing the case against God is to point out how frivolously people can sue other people. And apparently this was set off by the rape victim suing the judge in her case for banning the use of the word “rape” in the trial. =( Check out Feministing for more.
I’m about as liberal as they come, and from all the footage I have seen, this guys commandeered the mic, refused to give it up, and had a canned diatribe that he launched into while asking these questions. When he took up his allotted time (or rather someone elses since he cut in), he then refused to stop talking, they had to cut the mic and bring in the cops to even get his attention, and once the officers asked him to stop his misbehavior, he got even more confrontational, demanding to know what he’d done, when it was painfully obvious to everyone else there he was either a major jerk, or off his meds. I don’t know if he deserved getting tasered (who knows what went under under that pile of officers) but he certainly deserved to be taken into custody, so that other people could ask questions too.
Oh, and someone tasering Rush would make my day…
human - I was just there reading it.
Shorter dailykos: He cut in line and was disrespectful. Taser him!!!!!!!!!
[Shudder]
Why would that be frivolous? It seems to me to be an indefensible and rather blatant favoring of the defence. I also rather doubt that the judge would ban the word “attack” from a simple assault trial, “robbery” from robbery trials or “murder” or “killing” from homicide trials. These two points together in turn lead one to ponder — yet again — just how differently rape trials are treated from other crimes.The Campus Police are accountable to the University Administration, aren’t they? Watch to see what happens.
Ahaha, if only we could count on the Administration not to be completely useless. I’m a student at UF, and I can say with confidence that if anything gets done about this, it’ll be because of external pressure, not the folks in charge giving a damn.
Ernie Chambers is not awsome! Ernie Chambers thinks it cool that a judge bans the word “rape” from a rape trial. The rape victim was not allowed to point at the defendant and say, “He raped me.”
I’m into dissing God, too, but please, read the whole story.
Yes. Dailykos is just creepy these days. Was it that creepy in 2004 and I just never noticed, or has it changed that much?
I used to be one of those people who thought: “Well non-lethal weapons are certainly better than lethal weapons.” But the police have consistently shown an inability to control themselves in regard to non-lethal weapons, so maybe they should be banned.
I think it’s the natural result of what happens when your readership grows so much that you start getting over a million page hits a day and ~ 150,000 registered users. You end up with the good, the bad and the ugly.
pablo - they are lethal weapons. I linked in a post above to an Amnesty International report detailing abuses and deaths. For example, there were 61 deaths caused by or complicated by taser use in 2006 alone. When you tase someone, you’re electrocuting him. That’s absolutely life-threatening.
Mnemosyne: The UCLA cops have a wide jurisdiction. They are POST certified, and are the local police for Westwood.
Which means they are the worst combination of small town cops, and campus enforcement.
They get to deal with all sorts of day to day street crime, with the “us/them” attitude it generates, and the silly shit which goes on, on campus.
That needs to change.
Ah. Interesting.
I didn’t initially get the link with the Bowen case. It seems like Chambers’ point is that it’s “frivolous” to sue the judge because judicial immunity saves his ass anyhow, and so it’s just as useful from a legal point of view as suing God, because there’s nothingyou can do at that level. I assume she’s appealing the judgment to a higher court?
Furthermore, could someone who, legally speaking, knows their ass from a hole in the ground (i.e. not me) tell me what would be the correct way to remedy a stupid-ass ruling like “you can’t say rape in a rape case”? I don’t know how you’d actually challenge that, though I’m sure there’s a way.
Back to topic, then…yeah, these cops are outta control. I like the idea of making penalties greater for cops who do illegal things, or for that matter introducing an additional aggravating factor of “abuse of power” or something along those lines.
I also like the idea of tasing Rush Limbaugh, but that’s less likely.
HOW IN THE FUCK could he not have known .. have you watched that video? The screams itself would indicate that something it very wrong ….
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/18/university-of-florida-student-arrested-tasered-during-kerry-speech/
I can buy that Kerry did not know what had transpired … though I wish he had been forceful in intervening for the student … though I can also buy the argument that for his protection (from a knife or something else) he had to stay up on stage … what I cannot buy is that he didn’t know a taser had been used ….
Getting the feeling all the more that we are in a police state yet ?
Huge thread at OrangeLand on this. Lots of blogoshere Fascistii declaiming that this guy ‘got what he deserved…’. It would seem there is more work left to do in George W. Bush’s America for us rude, uncivil bloggers.
But then you knew that already.
he certainly deserved to be taken into custody, so that other people could ask questions too
So you think that being rude at a political town-hall meeting should be punishable by arrest?! That’s what you just said. If someone’s rude enough to commandeer the mic, you think they should be arrested.
Wow, the law’n'order crowd down there is getting really scary these days…
I personally think if someone’s rude enough to commandeer the mic, they should be ejected. I think the tasing was over the line.
Regarding less-lethal weapons: If a gun kills the person who’s been shot, oh, let’s say, one time in two, and a taser kills the tasered person, say, one time in ten thousand (these numbers are pulled from thin air and only for the purpose of explaining a point), then the less-lethal taser is only cumulatively less lethal if it’s used less than five thousand times as often as the gun. If they’re using tasers to eject, for goodness’ sake, people violating parliamentary procedure, it’s not entirely clear to me that that standard is being met.
I watched the video. Meyer asks quite distinctively “are you arresting me?” without any apparent spoken response from the officers. Unless the cops clearly announced he was under arrest he was under no obligation to let any of the officers touch his body. That is his right. His reaction to the ‘arrest’ is consistent with that right. It is not ‘resisting arrest’ if there was no arrest.
One of my friends has a straightforward suggestion for keeping tasers from getting out of hand:
Use the same post-incident paperwork and procedures for firing a taser as police already have for firing a gun.
BlackBloc: Actually, I’m pretty sure that in the US, there’s no requirement on the part of the police to tell someone they’re arresting what they’re being arrested for at the time of the arrest, as long as it’s done before they’re interrogated in custody.
EM,
You’re mistaken. Not only must police tell you they’re arresting you, but for what reason they are doing so. Besides, if he’s not under arrest, what might otherwise be a lawful order (and the enforcement thereof) to “come with us” is just assault and battery, and resistance to this would NOT fall under the heading “resisting arrest.”
They just got excited that they were finally going to get to do something interesting at work. Here’s hoping they have interesting criminal and civil trials, starring themselves as the defendants.
Ah Fred, you’re not Evil, you’re just anti-American.
Seriously.
That’s what the First Amendment protection of free speech means. Yeah, he was a bit of an asshole, but 1.) it was political speech, 2.) he was not physically assaulting anyone, and 3.) Kerry agreed to answer him.
There is no call for government censoring, which is what arresting him was. Since there was no reason to arrest him, it’s also a violation of his 4th Amendment protections from illegal government search and seizure. This was a clear cut case of authorities violating the Constitution.
What frightens me is how easily that crowd took it.
As for not knowing whether or not they should have used tasers…
Tasers are supposed to be used instead of guns, not willy nilly to expedite compliance. Would you say they cops were right if they’d shot the guy?
Several cops are sitting on him. He begs a cop not to use his weapon on him. The weapon is used, despite the fact the man is restrained.
Is it different if the weapon is a gun? If they’d shot him, just intending to wound, incapacitate, and silence him–would that be okay? Because tasers are supposed to be gun replacements–they can kill, and the cops are trained to know that.
If you can’t see any justification for shooting the guy in the video, then there is no justification for tasering him. If you can, then you are an out-and-out fascist.
The government does not have the right to arrest people for talking, and the right is even stronger in a political setting. All the people who are cheering on the cops sadden me. The terrorists HAVE won.
>>Not only must police tell you they’re arresting you, but for what reason they are doing so.
Yeah but they only need to tell you the reason of your arrest ‘promptly’, which is vague enough that the boys in blue get to play a bit on its meaning.
However, you need to be told immediatly that you are detained or under arrest. That is non-negotiable. Until an officer formally invokes the powers that the State granted him, he or she is just another citizen, and if I grab someone without their consent it’s called assault.
I mean, if Meyer pulled a gun on an officer that would be different, because then there’s an immediate and direct threat that needs to be taken down. But if the only threat that Meyer was presenting was that he might embarrass or annoy, I’d say the police response is excessive, to say the least.
Doctor Science suggests:
That is such an awesome suggestion!!!! Then perhaps we could get the benefits hoped for from less-lethal control methods (i.e., when a gun would have been used, the taser is used as a less lethal alternative) without this in-actual-practice consequence of cops tasering everyone who moderately annoys them!!
WOW, theres a lot of uneducated people running their mouth about Tasers. First, they do NOT electricute people and NONE of the deaths can be directly linked to the Taser. As a cop I have been tased and have tased several people, NONE of which died. This is a great tool for officers to use in certain situations to prevent the officer and suspect from being hurt. If this loud mouth moron would have complied with the officers and not resisted (which he clearly does from seeing the video) then this wouldnt be an issue. So all you bleeding heart leftwingnut treehuggers stop your crying!!
“If this loud mouth moron would have complied with the officers and not resisted (which he clearly does from seeing the video) then this wouldnt be an issue.”
Everyone exit from the cattle cars! Schnell!!!
Okay, all you healthy young men, proceed to your work assignments on the right.
You old men and women, proceed directly to the delousing showers on the left.
If you resist, you vill be schott!!!
“So all you bleeding heart leftwingnut treehuggers stop your crying!!”
From this “leftwingnut/tree hugger” to “cookie” the Reichwingnut/tree burner - why do you insist on ruining America? Wouldn’t it just be simpler for you and yours to just move to North Korea and be done with it?…
Several different medical examiners have determined taser use to be a factor in some of these deaths. The bottom line is that many of these victims would not have died if they hadn’t been tasered. Is that really so damn surprising? Tasers put the body into a great deal of physical stress - it’s no wonder that individuals on drugs or with some preexisting conditions can die from that shit.
But you tasered a few healthy cops and nothing came of it, so it can’t POSSIBLY be dangerous. Your magic cop senses would tingle if it were.
Oh, and there is NO reason to put someone who is not a threat through that kind of pain when it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that simply talking to them could resolve that situation. Yes, even if you have a small dick.
God, what the hell is it with some cops these days? Do you just not bother to differentiate between an actual threat and a “loud mouth moron,” or are they the same thing to you? The student said he would leave the building, but that wasn’t good enough, was it?
He’s right, folks. Crying will just get you another tasering.
A+++++++++++++++++++ trolling run. Would feed again.
cookie - get a fucking brain. 50,000 volts from a taser affects a person’s sensory nervous system and nervous motor system. It’s shocking the person’s body to incapacitate him AND cause him pain. Taser use doesn’t protect people from harm. It *causes* them harm.
So you lived from a taser stun. Congratulations. Now we know what’s wrong with you.
So let me ask you morons a question? is there ever a use for the taser? because according to you fucknuts it is nothing more than a tool to inflict pain on people and should be banned. And YET again, if he had just left and not resisted the officers we wouldnt be having this discussion. None of you will address that issue. Maybe as an officer i should just offer the suspect a hug or a glass of warm milk. You ALL are whats wrong with America, bleeding heart liberals all crammed in the LOVE bus!!
Could we get an overhaul on the second sentence? I’d like to share this article, but it’s not family friendly yet.
It could say
“Law enforcement is inappropriately using a tool meant for use against violent, out-of-control individuals.”
or
“A tool meant for use against violent, out-of-control individuals is being used inappropriately by law enforcement.”
Either would ease my OCD, thank you much in advance.
cookie,
What’s your name and what police department do you work at?
“And YET again, if he had just left and not resisted the officers we wouldnt be having this discussion.”
shorter cookie: “Goddam those framers of the Constitution for enshrining freedom of speech! Why, oh why didn’t they set America up from the beginning as the police state I know they really wanted us to live in!!!”
“You ALL are whats wrong with America, bleeding heart liberals all crammed in the LOVE bus!!”
High praise coming from TaserMan. Hey, cookie, ever just tased some poor bastard just for the shits and giggles?
cookie, if you were a real American, you’d be concerned with the loss of civil rights, and not peeing your pants because somebody wants to say something you don’t like.
You would have made an excellent royalist back in the 1700’s…
Dunno, left during the “pie fights.” However, it’s always had it’s share of “conservative democrats.” You know, the folks who are still Democrats because of the “War of Northern Aggression” and who think that anyone who would question authority or the greatness of America (the Confederacy’s treason for slavery notwithstanding) ought to be hung, or at least in prison.
in other words, cookie.
That’s right, cookie, the problem with America is that we aren’t hateful enough.
What’s the matter, cookie? Run out of black folk to harass?
Here’s a use for a taser: every time you consider posting to a blog other than Michelle Malkin’s, pull it out and shoot it at your groin. Conditioning therapy. It works.
Geez-how’s this for freedom of speech? Cookie challenges the common wisdom and gets labeled as a fascist/racist/anti-American. No refutation from most — just name-calling. I sooner trust Cookie with a taser than you folks.
sj,
we have a history with cookie.
then again, maybe you’re a right wing fascist as well.
sj - if we were siccing police officers on their fellow, you’d have a point.
But we’re not, so you don’t.
This student did this deliberately to provoke exactly this response from the police.
He rambled on and on, would not relinquish the mic.
He didn’t want Kerry to answer, he wanted a soapbox.
He asked 3 questions, wouldn’t let Kerry answer, and kept right on talking.
Then he resisted the police (always stupid) and made several attempts to break free of them and walk towards the stage where a US Senator and former US Presidential Candidate was speaking.
He didn’t just try to get free of the Police - he did this moving towards the stage, on 3 occasions. He could have broken free and moved in many directions, but he moved towards the stage.
When I see an erratic, gesticulating wildly man who is repeatedly making attempts to break free of police restraint and make his way towards a politician, during a US presidential campaign, I don’t think “Harmless Wacko”.
I think Squeaky Fromme and Assassination Attempt.
Yes, even if the politician isn’t in the campaign.
Maybe Kerry would be a VP pick?
And what were all those cameras from different angles doing there? Obviously this guy was a troublemaker and intended to provoke the police into something on camera.
Buck, believe whatever makes you sleep at night, but the man was pinned on the ground with a police officer sitting on him already when they shocked him anyway. That’s gratuitous. It’s also cruel, though no longer unusual.
“No refutation from most — just name-calling.”
There was nothing to cookie’s comments except for name-calling.
Nothing to refute, in any case.
and sj, where’s the free speech problem?
Oh that’s right. Because cookie’s a bigoted right-wing authoritarian, it’s right to free speech means the right not to be criticized.
MAJeff,
Are you aware that even pointing that out counts as a kind of criticism? The black vans have been dispatched, for freedom!
“…And what were all those cameras from different angles doing there? Obviously this guy was a troublemaker and intended to provoke the police into something on camera…”
Well, if that was the case, the police were not very smart, then, were they?
By ther way, after they hustled him out of the auditorium the police told him that he was going to be charged with “incitement to riot.”
Now, the new question is, would that declaration be classed a “false arrest?”