Video of UCLA student being tasered by campus police for not showing his ID

An incident late Tuesday night in which a UCLA student was stunned at least four times with a Taser has left the UCLA community questioning whether the university police officers’ use of force was an appropriate response to the situation.Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a UCLA student, was repeatedly stunned with a Taser and then taken into custody when he did not exit the CLICC Lab in Powell Library in a timely manner. Community Service Officers had asked Tabatabainejad to leave after he failed to produce his BruinCard during a random check at around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. UCPD Assistant Chief of Police Jeff Young said the checks are a standard procedure in the library after 11 p.m. “Because of the safety of the students we limit the use after 11 to just students, staff and faculty,” Young said.Young said the CSOs on duty in the library at the time went to get UCPD officers when Tabatabainejad did not immediately leave, and UCPD officers resorted to use of the Taser when Tabatabainejad did not do as he was told. The six-minute video showed Tabatabainejad audibly screaming in pain as he was stunned several times with a Taser, each time for three to five seconds. He was told repeatedly to stand up and stop fighting, and was told that if he did not do so he would “get Tased again.”

The officers used the “drive stun” setting in the Taser, which delivers a shock to a specific part of the body with the front of the Taser, Young said.  A Taser delivers volts of low-amperage energy to the body, causing a disruption of the body’s electrical energy pulses and locking the muscles, according to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union.“It’s an electrical shock. … It causes pain,” Young said, adding that the drive stun would not likely demobilize a person or cause residual pain after the shock was administered. Young also said a Taser is less forceful than a baton, for example.But according to a study published in the Lancet Medical Journal in 2001, a charge of three to five seconds can result in immobilization for five to 15 minutes, which would mean that Tabatabainejad could have been physically unable to stand when the officers demanded that he do so.  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. UCPD and the UCLA administration would not comment on the specifics of the incident as it is still under investigation.In a statement released Wednesday, Interim Chancellor Norman Abrams said investigators were reviewing the situation and the officers’ actions. “I can assure you that these reviews will be thorough, vigorous and fair,” Abrams said.The incident, which Zaragoza described as an example of “police brutality,” left many students disturbed.Edit: A side viewFrom one of the guys at UCLA who was at Powell Library

” Let me start off by saying that the guy DEFINITELY was asking to get his ass kicked. He was being extremely rude with the campus patrol guys (who are college students…this was before the real UCPD got called in). He was not complying with their requests to leave the premises, and he was definitely itching for a fight. I actually know the guy and a few of his friends, and I can tell you that he’s the kind of guy that loves to make trouble.Just as a little backstory, one of the quotes the guy has on his facebook (which he now has taken down) was “I like to find the most difficult solutions to the simplest of problems”.He definitely taunted the UCPD into behaving the way they did with him.”
Credits and full report visit the Dailybruin article here  

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