University police officers used a Taser on a student repeatedly during an altercation at the UCLA library at 11:30 pm November 15. There was a video made by a student witness, who captured only the end of the altercation with the student shouting profanities at the police and then screaming in pain when he was tasered.
What the video did not capture was that the student was asked repeatedly to leave by library security and refused. This led to the police being called. When the police took him by the arm to ensure that he left, he began to swear, threaten, and physically resist them. In short, he picked a fight with police and found out the hard way why that is generally a bad idea. Could police have tried to de-escalate the situation? Maybe.
Police stated that the student in question encouraged other students to join his one-man resistance, which likely led police to threaten the mob that surrounded the officers. The ACLU, of course, is calling the police's actions an illegal assault and police brutality. Because the video on the web only shows the tail end of the confrontation, and then only mostly audio, many people have begun to jump to conclusions about the matter. One columnist for the Daily Bruin has cautioned against to rampant knee-jerk responses to the matter.
On a campus where arrests due to student disruption seem common, it is little surprise that police take verbal abuse by students seriously. The response to the tasering seems to speak mostly of anti-police sentiment.
There are only a small number of ways to force an unruly individual to do what you want. You could physically strike them and encourage a hand-to-hand combat situation with a police office, which would likely threaten their own safety. You could beat the suspect with a baton causing no small amount of pain and physical harm. Or you could use a Taser, on the settting which they used, to encourage cooperation. In all but the cases of individuals high on drugs, Tasers do not cause fatalities. They choose the safest option for an uncooperative individual.
You reap what you sow. The idea, mostly coming from the left, that the police must treat citizens with the utmost level of respect while insisting that it's perfectly acceptable to verbally defecate on police officers and physically resist legitimate orders is absurd. He picked a fight with police and he lost. It's that simple.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Anonymous
You're a knee-jerk right-wing blogger writing in knee-jerk bad english. You need an editor, and you need to be less partial in your reporting.
2 - Josh
Anonymous, it's hard to take you seriously when you don't back up anything you say with facts. How is Bambeneck being partial? Isn't he instead calling for impartiality?
YOU are obviously the one with the knee-jerk, biased reaction here. Remove the splinter from thine own eye.
3 - mistyeyed
i wish you were there too
4 - Jerry
Cops are human.
Sometimes they make mistakes, but it looks like it was the student who made the mistake on this one.
If the cops had made the mistake he'd probably be in the hospital rather than the slammer...that is if he was even arrested.
5 - Doctor G
Maybe Mostafa picked a fight, maybe not. Either way, the cops should have been professional enough to avoid it. And either way, he survived the first round. Further rounds will take place in court and in public opinion, and when the last round comes there will be cops in prison, and university administrators out of work, and Mostafa will own Powell Library. So who are the losers here?
6 - fakefakefake
This is not fact. Be careful, reporting fake news can cost you lots of money.
7 - 2xtreme
Picked a fight and lost? Sure maybe he was being uncooperative, but was it necessary to use the taser that many times? I dont think so. He could have easily been removed after one, and even that I think was too much. Yelling at a student to 'stand up or you'll get tased again'? Ridiculous. Get hit with a taser like that and then tell me how quickly you can jump back to your feet. This was an absolutely sickening act by people who are supposed to be protecting us. No matter how unruly, after what he went through, he was obviously not a threat, and could easily have been removed. The UCPD took it way over the line and deserved to be disciplined, or even tried, for this disgusting act.
8 - JohnSucks
I agree with 2xtreme. The officers physical integrity was never in danger and there was no need to do that. The student was already leaving when the officer grabbed his arm (why?) . They could have easily dragged him out even without tasing him. On top of that they did it 5 times, one time while on handcuffs. You dont tase people just because you get anoyed. John Bambenek you are a piece of scum just like those cops.
9 - ShiniGami
I can tell you whiners never have to deal with law enforcement. Who is this person, why no ID. What's in his backpack, etc etc. They're supposed to let him go, then the news is "Mysterious Middle Eastern Man with backpack eludes police. Community in fear."
If they say stop, you stop. If they say get down, get down, if they say stand up, stand up. Yelling F You and not complying is all this guy did, so he gets tasered. Would you rather they beat him with a nightstick or shoot him?
He's an unknown person, with no ID, that had been asked to leave, and didn't, and they were called in to handle him. They said MANY MANY times, in a clam voice, stand up. He didn't. So he got tased. He could have stood up, and walked out quietly, no problem. When they asked him to stop, he could stop, and explain the situation.
This F!ckTard got what he deserved.
10 - uncontainable spirit
He was mentally aware enough to claim "abuse of power" to the cops, and when they told him to stand up, he said "F** you." Screw the little punk. All he needed to do was what was asked off him. But no... idealistic little college prick has to do what comes so instinctively to a college kid (not all of them of course): Rebel. Protest. March. Demonstrate. While those traits were noble in that they were used effectively to combat and cure such social injustice as civil rights, and war, this was nothing but a big mouth smart.ass who refused to follow the rules.
He had to know, even if it's in retrospect, that he was dealt a losing hand, here. And he dug his own grave. I don't like pain, and feel for anyone who suffers pain; but I can't go with a defiant student. I look at it like this: he just earned a few stripes towards rank in the real world.
11 - European Student
I think you should see the video yourself, instead of just rant about people's reaction. For the record, I am from Europe, from one of those countries where we used to have police behaving this way during a dictatorship, nowadays police is as effective as before and they do not use those methods... mostly because there would be virtually no-one like you defending what is impossible to defend. Yeah, the guy got himself in what happen, agreed... still, Police incurred in a clear abuse of power, cause you overview the fact that they tased him while handcuffed, they tased him 4 times in fact... can you explain me how is that reasonable?. I guess you right-wingers are ok with this so that it will be completely true that you bring your democracy to Irak... exact copy, there you send guys in green, here you have them in Blue. I wish some day you manage to come out of your cave and see that there are places where things work in a different way.
12 - RJ Elliott
Little pinko punk got what he deserved. He was just playing to the crowd anyway, probably exaggerating his "screams" of pain. And if the tasing was so horrendous and damaging, how/why was he able to continue profanely mouthing off afterwards and whining about "excessive force" and the like?
And what's with his apropos-of-nothing bitching about "The Patriot Act" ??? WTF does that have to do with the use of a taser by the police against an unruly/uncooperative person? Were tasers invented after 9/11?
Let me explain the situation for you from a police perspective. They are called onto the scene after someone has been asked to leave by the staff (presumably for a legitimate reason). Upon arriving, that individual still refuses to leave. The police have a duty to remove the person from the scene at this point, and this person has repeatedly refused to leave voluntarily. Therefore, the police have to use force to make him leave. Yes, force. That's what police do; in fact, that's why we have created police in the first place. They are there to maintain order, and when order is not able to be maintained by talking and reasoning, police have a legal monopoly on coercive force, and the duty to apply it.
Eurotrash student - How nice of you to compare this little event to the various brutal authoritarian dictatorships that have arisen over the years on your continent. Of course, we in the US don't have nearly the experience in dictatorships as you Euros do, so please, lecture us some more.
13 - jack
How can anyone see this video and not react with shock? It does not matter how the whole thing it started. That point is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is - he could have easily put under control without the use of so much force.
I just ran into this blog by accident ... but i hope you get sued. If this is your idea of journalism - you really suck at it. You take the cops version as reality w/out questioning it at all. Has the thought ever occured to you - that they could lie?
But that point is mute ... i pray to God that you get tazed someday and see if u can stand up in your feet.
14 - bojo
Dear idiot blogger,
I suppose your inflamitory headline was meant to get you some more web hits.
Maybe if you watched the video you would understand that there was no fight picked, only a brutal show of excessive force by a militarized police force out of control.
15 - RJ Elliott
I have a feeling this post's comment thread will easily run 200+ comments in no time, mostly from anonymous leftist anti-police morons who seem to think that belligerent assholes who repeatedly refuse to leave a public place should be handled with kid gloves by the only people who have the legal authority to intervene...
16 - ShiniGami
"Maybe if you watched the video you would understand that there was no fight picked, only a brutal show of excessive force by a militarized police force out of control."
OK mama's boy, excesive use of force would be shooting him 10 times with a HK G36c.
Again, perp with no ID, asked to leave, and won't. He could be armed, have a bomb in his bag or who knows what else.
Any of the people touching the cops or interferring should have been tasered too.
17 - Maureen
All the cops had to was handcuff him and drag him out, if this scenario is true. And based on the fact that they used a taser, which is used to make people fall and stay down, and then tasered him for not getting up, shows me how sick these cops are. Regardless of what the young man did, it didn't warrant repeated use of a taser, a tool being overused and responsible for more than 80 deaths over the past seven years. The phrase 'knee jerk response' applies, but not the way you're suggesting.
I'm not defending the student either, since I wasn't there. I'm just saying that if the story is true the way it's being depicted here, the police are still guilty of abuse.
18 - Ahmed
How difficult would it have been for the police to drag the student out of the library? Mumble on about how the taser is the best of the weapons blah blah blah but the fact of the matter is they could have simply dragged him from the room. People don't get tasered when they're getting thrown out of clubs, just dragged out and dumped on the street. As soon as they started using the taser they were obviously in the wrong, and repeated use is going to win this guy millions in court. Best of luck to him, this was obviously police power-tripping at its finest.
19 - onthefence
The blogger seems to jump to a conclusion at least as quickly as those "many people" he mentions in his blog. On the face of it, the video is disturbing. However, more investigation and less jumping is called for
20 - Matthew T. Sussman
The more that I think about it, this really is the PATRIOT Act's fault.
21 - Brett
This stupid blogger is just wanting more attention. Well, he got it. The bottom line is that he wasn't there. I wasn't there. However, from what I read, there was a random ID check (for whatever reason) and this kid didn't want to show it or didn't have it. The rules of the university need to be checked to see if students are required to show ID when challenged. Either way, I would like to see statistics on how many blond hair, blue eyed girls were asked for ID in comparison.
22 - hot to trot
that video = funny. You libbies don't fool a soul.
did the cops have to use the taser??? prolly not, but it's still funny to watch that spoiled rotten kid play victim to the audience like any typical liberal attention whore. so random. I loled at his forced screams and cries. they were SOOO put on!
AAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH! FUCK YOU! WHERE'S YOUR PATRIOT ACT!????? AAAAAAGGGGHHH!
hahahahahahaha.
You KNOW i'm right.
23 - Doctor G
No, Mister Trot, I know you are wrong.
24 - RedTard
I think if someone refuses police requests and puts up a fight policemen should have to apologize for offending the person and leave the area immediately without follow up. Police should only be able to harass obedient, law abiding types.
25 - STM
The cops do get a bit angry sometimes when young blokes won't do what they're told.
My son was recently thrown by a police officer into a window at a McDonald's in Sydney. It was 2am, and he'd previously been involved in what could best be described as a minor, drunken altercation in the pub up the road with another boy.
Both boys were asked to leave, but continued to argue verbally in the carpark at Macca's.
The cops were there getting their food. My son was told to go home, but then stupidly remembered he forgot to get a burger and went back to stand in the queue. Smart move. The big problem was that the two naughty boys had been swearing their heads off at each other. Loudly. The upshot was that my son was thrown into a plate glass window, which cracked.
The police then threw him to the ground, threatened him with capsicum spray, handcuffed him and threw him into a paddy wagon and drove him to the police station where he was charged with assault (over the pub incident) and malicious damage for breaking the window, claiming that he'd continually thrown himself backwards into it and that their role was limited to "gently" placing their hands on his chest.
The assault charge was dropped as no-one even thought there'd been an assault in the first place, including the victim.
Then the magistrate dismissed the malicious damage charge, after viewing the security video and hearing about three hundred hours of evidence, commenting that since the crack in the window was a metre off the ground, it seemed more likely that he'd been propelled backwards into it (either that, or he'd have to have been a midget).
As the charge of offensive language is no longer holding up in the courts here, the one thing they could have legitimately charged him with, they didn't (luckily, there's no charge for being an idiot).
The cost, after hiring a solicitor AND a barrister, not to mention the time off work, a cool $10,000.
My advice to young guys: shut the f.ck up and don't argue with the police, even if you think you've done nothing wrong. If they tell you to piss off, just go.
Ten grand is an awful lot of biscuits.
And stop taking years off your fathers' lives.