Culture Wars
“Don’t Tase Me, Bro”
by Clay Staggs
Sometimes it’s hard to know if I’ve just become too jaded and cynical, or whether American culture has completely gone down the drain.
In the news recently was the story of this college student at the University of Florida who went to a forum where Sen. Kerry was speaking. He overstayed his time at the microphone per the events rules, and the police came to remove him. He resisted the officers, which is completely illegal, so they attempted to arrest him, which he then further refused. After a warning that they were going to use the taser on him, when he still failed to follow their instructions, they used the taser on him.
Here’s the video. (I think there’s a profanity beeped out, but you may want the kiddos out of the room just in case.)
Now here’s my question. Should I feel sorry for him? I really don’t. A hit from a taser is painful, but does no long or short term damage. He was resisting an entire group of officers. What are they to do? They’d be sued if they broke his arm trying to force it behind his back and into the cuffs.
The reaction in the blogosphere to this has been surprising. Most seem to feel that the force was excessive, and that the campus cops were trigger happy. Here’s a roundup of comments.
Have I gotten too hard-hearted? Is this brutality? Or, is it simply acceptable now to refuse arrest, and suffer no consequence for it? Aren’t the police in a no-win situation here?
I’m interested to hear anyone’s thoughts about this.
Posted by Clay Staggs at September 19, 2007 02:23 PM
I’ve followed this as well and, according to one of the cops:
“As (Meyer) was escorted down stairs (at the University Auditorium) with no cameras in sight, he remained quiet, but once the cameras made their way down stairs he started screaming and yelling again,” Mallo wrote.
also,
Mallo also wrote in her report that he (Meyer)asked, at one point, if cameras would be present at the jail.
Sounds like a painful publicity stunt to me.
I think this boy (man, really,) got just the publicity he wanted. It was extremely obvious he was being a drama queen in all of this. If he had had his way he would have incited a riot, which he tried to do with his cries for “help.” He’s a pretty bad actor, though, and I think most of the audience sensed that. From some of the background noise I believe he did get a little rise from at least one female student,who can be heard emotionally crying and shrieking, “stop it…what are you doing to him?” Sen. Kerry maintained the impression I’ve always had of him,throwing his sympathies with the student (as opposed to those acting legally and responsibly) but being totally ineffectual… trying to stay mild-mannered in the cozy middle ground in his response. (uh…this isn’t nice, but, uh, maybe if we all just stay calm,…I mean…uh…I suppose I should answer his question, uh, it’s a good…uh…question…but, uh….” ) He’s a pretty poor actor, too, if you ask me. I agree this has nothing to do with 1st amendment rights or excessive use of force…I imagine these officers were doing exactly as they were trained to do…by the book. They warned him he would be tasered if he continued to resist. He made the choice. Besides, VA Tech tells us you can’t just ignore crazy-acting people and hope they’ll be nice and not do anything seriously harmful…though the big baby of a student in this scenario wouldn’t have scared me (or anyone else, I assume.) I am not ignorant that abuse of authority exists…EVERYONE has a sin nature, and authority without restraint can be nasty. But I think an ever-growing problem in our society of equal concern is the growing disregard and lack of honor for ANY authority.This is certainly unBiblical. Somehow we have to keep the tension between vigilance about true injustice and allegiance to law and order, or we end up with chaos. A small example: My son just related to me that one of his (young) teachers “hasn’t gotten very far” into the material yet because of the behavior of “about half of our class.” They are way into the semester now, and this is in a subject of importance to the field he hopes to pursue, so I am angry that these “nice kids” are being so disrespectful to a rightful authority, (their teacher) that they are stealing the valuable learning time of those who need it. Today’s children probably need more training in respecting authority than they do in standing up for their rights, which, in our current cultural climate, comes very naturally.