Fun with Tasers!

As you may have heard, a student was tasered a couple of times by UCPD officers in the CLICC Lab in Powell Library around 11:30 last night.

If you haven't read the article, the Daily Bruin broke the story sometime this morning. Pretty crazy stuff.

Now, this is the sort of thing we Angelinos have come to expect from the LAPD. I've heard LAPD officers defend themselves saying that going into dangerous neighborhoods late at night can really put you on edge and make you less tolerant of threatening behavior. I never thought about it, but maybe UCPD has to deal with the same thing. Granted, we don't really have "dangerous areas" on campus, but maybe all of those late night studiers at the CLICC Lab, overcome with stress from midterms and upcoming term papers looked a little on edge that night, and maybe Mr. Tabatabainejad's requests to be let go while he was walking out the door were more aggressive than the DB article made it sound. Regardless, I'm pretty sure that "excessive force" would be an accurate term in this case. As a friend of mine commented this morning, I'm guessing there are going to be a few openings at UCPD after today.

Coincidentally, at the UCPD's first annual recognition event last week, an officer was awarded the aptly titled "Meritorious Service/Taser Award." Maybe the officer involved last night was hoping to get it next year.

Oooh, I just found that NBC4 has a video from that night taken with a digital camera. You don't see too much, but the audio is pretty disturbing. You can check it out here. And whoever out there has that video, YouTube is awaiting your submission.