Video Shows UCLA Police Using Stun Gun On Student

LOS ANGELES -- An administrative review was under way after a 23-year-old student was administered multiple stun gun shocks by UCLA Police Department officers in the Powell Library computer lab.

Video shot from another student's camera phone shows the man screaming while on the floor of the computer lab as officers used the stun gun on him at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Daily Bruin.

He had been working at a computer in the back of the lab and had failed to produce a student ID during a random check performed by community service officers, the newspaper reported.

According to a UCLA police sergeant, the student was identified as Mostafa Tabatabainejad of Los Angeles.

He was given a citation for obstruction/delay of a peace officer in the performance of duty and then released from custody, the sergeant said.

The sergeant said he saw Tabatabainejad after it happened and that he did not appear to have suffered serious injury.

"If he was able to walk out of here, I think he was OK," the sergeant said.

In a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, Nancy Greenstein of the University of California Police Department said: "All use of force incidents require an administrative review, which is currently under way."

Officers were escorting Tabatabainejad out of the computer lab when the trouble started, according to the Daily Bruin. One of the officers placed a hand on one of his arms, to which the student objected.

As a second officer approached, he repeatedly yelled "get off of me," the newspaper reported.

It was then that one of the officers shot Tabatabainejad with a stun gun, dropping him to the floor as he cried out, according to the newspaper.

"Any student who witnessed it was left with an image you don't want to remember," said a witness who asked not to be identified.

When asked whether the student resisted when officer attempted to escort him from the building, the witness said, "In the beginning, no. But when they were holding onto him and they were on the ground, he was trying to just break free. He was saying, 'I'm leaving, I'm leaving.' It was so disturbing to watch that I cannot be concise on that. I can just say that he was willing to leave. He had his backpack on his shoulder and he was walking out when the cops approached him. It was unnecessary."

Greenstein said a Community Service Officer employed by the library was performing a nightly check to ensure that all patrons using the library after 11 p.m. were authorized to be there.

"This is a longstanding library policy to ensure the safety of students during the late-night hours," Greenstein said. "The CSO made an announcement that he would be checking for university identification. When a person, who was later identified as ... Tabatabainejad, refused to provide any identification, the CSO told him that if he refused to do so, he would have to leave the library.

"Since, after repeated requests, he would neither leave nor show identification, the CSO notified UCPD officers, who responded and asked Tabatabainejad to leave the premises multiple times. He continued to refuse. As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building.

Greenstein said Tabatabainejad encouraged others in the library to join his "resistance." She said a crowd gathered around the officers.

"The officers deemed it necessary to use the Taser in a 'drive stun' capacity," she said in the statement. "A Taser is used to incapacitate subjects who are resistant by discharging an electronic current into the subject in one of two methods: via two wired probes that are deployed from the Taser, or in a 'drive stun' capacity by touching the subject with the Taser. In this incident the student was not shot with a Taser; rather, officers used the 'drive stun' capability.

"The entire incident is under investigation, and a case will be presented to the City Attorney," Greenstein's statement read.

The video shows the student shouting, "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your (expletive) abuse of power," the newspaper reported.

University police are investigating an incident late last night in which police took a student into custody at Powell Library. Investigators are reviewing the incident and the officers' actions, and I can assure you that these reviews will be thorough, vigorous and fair.

The safety of our campus community is of paramount importance to me. Routinely checking student identification after 11 p.m. at the campus library, which is open 24 hours, is a policy posted in the library that was enacted for the protection of our students. Compliance is critical for the safety and well-being of everyone.

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/10325914/detail.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyvrqcxNIFs

I was going to make a joke, but holy fuck! That was WAY disporportionate use of force.

i like how he yells, i didnt do anything, yet you cant see if he did or not. i seriously doubt, with the lapd getting blasted for the excessive force recently that a campus cop would do this so soon after, but who knows, maybe i give people too much credit

The part I found awful was that after he had been tased, the cops are yelling at him to get up, and then when he didn't, they tased him again!

Repeat.

Those cops are done.

thats why you always listen to the po po

But what if he COULDN'T stand after that?

shoot him in the knees to make sure hes not lying?

Seriously. When cops are "escorting" you out of a place, you just go. If they grab your arm, you let them have your arm. It is best to just keep your mouth shut and go.

That was absolutely an excessive use of force to get someone out of a library that didn't have thier ID. But everyone knows that cops sometimes use excessive force. Don't be a dumbass. Just go.

I think there are two issues involved here.

What he do to deserve getting removed/escorted/tased the first time?

What did he do to deserve getting tased repeatedly?

I'll give the cops the benefit of the doubt on the first question, but I don't see how there could be any justification for the next five minutes of tasing a man lying on the ground saying that he was leaving.

I don't think he deserved any of it.

I do, however, think it was avoidable on his part.

Didn't you see his last name?

Awful policing.

Cop uses stun gun on student who won't show ID

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A UCLA police officer shocked a student with a stun gun at a campus library after he refused repeated requests to show student identification and wouldn't leave, police said.

The student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, was shocked Tuesday at about 11 p.m. as police did a routine check of student IDs at the University of California, Los Angeles Powell Library computer lab.

"This is a long-standing library policy to ensure the safety of students during the late-night hours," said UCLA Police Department spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein.

She said police tried to escort Tabatabainejad, 23, out of the library after he refused to provide identification. Tabatabainejad instead encouraged others at the library to join his resistance, and when a crowd began to gather, police used the stun gun on him, Greenstein said.

Tabatabainejad was arrested for resisting and obstructing a police officer and later released on his own recognizance. He declined to comment Wednesday night.

The incident was recorded on another student's camera phone and showed Tabatabainejad screaming while on the floor of the computer lab.

It was the third incident in a month in which police behavior in the city was criticized after amateur video surfaced. The other two involved the Los Angeles Police Department.

Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams promised an investigation.

"The safety of our campus community is of paramount importance to me," Abrams said in a statement.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/16/studen ... index.html

When did he encourage others to join in his resistance? Asking them to get the officers badge numbers?

youve only seen six minutes of what went down...im sure theres more

LULZPEOPLEWITHFUNNYLASTSNAMESARETERRORISTSLULZ



Sounds like a reasonable use of force if this is true. If I was a cop and someone in my custody was inciting a mob threat against me, I'd act too.

Off to Gitmo with this ass clown.

I was leaning towards the student's point of view of this being excessive force, until I got to the 2nd half of the article including the info above. The kid was being a douche bag and got what he had coming to him.

That is exactly what I was thinking. I didn't follow any of the links here so I must have missed where he got tasered multiple times? It seems to me that if he was violently resisting the cops, pulling his arms away or trying to push them away, it was right to taser him once.

My guess is the crowd was gathered to see what the hell was going on. And since when does yelling expletives give cops a reason to taser you?

Yeah, that was teh joke I was going to make, until I saw the video.

OK, so I made my original post after having only read the article. After watching the video, it appears to me that the campus police probably could have handled the situation much better. For instance, there were three of them standing around it looked like. I see no reason why they couldn't have simply picked the kid up when he started his bitch fit. I would imagine that if these guys are campus security, its likely that they don't have extensive training in subduing an individual in a situation like this. I would think that standard police procedure in an instance like this would be to remove the subject from the area as quickly as possible to avoid making a scene or having a crowd form. They obviously failed in this respect. From the video, it appears that they didn't use the taser on him until he started screaming and making an ass of himself. If the kid had simply complied with their requests, he would have had a much more pleasant evening.

That was unacceptable. It seems pretty clear that he didn't deserve that. I think those cops deserve a taser in the face and boot off the squad. Fucking douchebag cops.

well all cops are anyways.

btw, pd. If I go up to a cop and say "YOU SUCK !! COPS ARE ABUSIVE !! NOBODY RESPECTS YOU !! YOUR JOB SUCKS !!"

can they do anything after I say that?