I have been asked about this quite a few times. “What are your thoughts about the Iranian American student at UCLA being tasered for not having his I.D. on November of 2006?” Someone recently brought this issue back to my attention and asked me to address my individual thoughts on the situation. I watched the video a few times, as well to kind of understand the incident and in case I missed something relevant; I, then, realized the horrible distinction and example it gave.
I always praised cops and still do, but now I know that “dirty” cops do exist and the UCLA police are some fine examples of what “dirty” are portrayed to be. I think the cops are incompetent and truly an insult to the uniform. I say this because I believe that it was truly unethical for the UCLA police force to taser him once (as in UCLA Iranian American student), let alone 5 times for extended amounts of time. Just because someone is “cocky” or has a bad attitude, does NOT mean it is acceptable to taser them. Just because one is gives a bad attitude doesn’t mean that they are capable of doing something extreme to which I taser should be used. Tasers are used as a last resort, before a gun. They are clearly a weapon. They are for defense purposes only. I can understand if they tasered him once (even though, that is unethical), but they tasered him continuously, even after he was completely defenseless. He was completely unintuned after being tasered the second time.
When someone is tasered, they lose mobility and control. The loss of mobility varies per person/per shock, from the taser. The muscles spasm and as the muscles spasm, they are paralyzing instantly to which can last for a long period of time, although varies depending on individual. In most cases it is temporary, however; it’s been said that there are deadly effects from taser guns resulting in death. In fact, an 18 year old guy from Myspace died from being tasered and was featured on MyDeathSpace about the incident.
It has been said by several forensic theorists that here have been 80 cases of death in a 5 year period from taser usage in the United States alone. Keep in mind this is just an estimated number (the numbers just may be higher) and yes, there is no question, you can die as a result from being tasered. I can understand if they tasered the Iranian American student once (as I stated previously), but they did it five times. The UCLA police asked him to “get up” and continued to taser him, when he couldn’t get up, let alone respond. He was completely unintuned from the effects, as a result.
The UCLA police abused their authority and went way out of their jurisdiction. Even after the Iranian American student was completely defenseless, they tasered him multiple times, after he was already tasered twice. Was this because he was Iranian American? The police could have escorted him out (he was defenseless and he didn’t possess any weapons and they outnumbered him), instead they continued to abrasively taser him, until he fell to the ground. All for what? Because he gave an attitude and didn’t have his ID.
Resources:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/298748/ucla_taser_incident_with_iranianamerican.html
