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Without getting into the politics of the incident at UCLA in which a student was tasered, I was curious to see if it showed up on any gay-related blogs. Although not the most appropriate analogy, I could not help but think of the Stonewall riots.

But the only blog that seems to have covered it was the excellent one by towleroad - a blog with homosexual tendencies. (Be warned of the ads that take over the screen from time to time; I really could do without those.)

Towleroad also does something that is incredibly rare on the web is to offer a reply to a query. How many times have written someone with important info, only to be totally ignored. Or to provide a service and not receive a response.

As a matter of record, the photo is from the video on YouTube at ucla. The photo has had the brightness and contrast enhanced. YouTube has over 150 results for the search term "ucla student," some are additional copies of the video, and many are commentaries on the event.

Regarding the latest on the incident, I was going to link to an article in the "L A Times," but they require a mind-numbing registration process. So I will quote:

[Hoping to calm the furor created when UCLA police used a Taser to subdue a student studying in Powell Library, the university's acting chancellor announced Friday that a veteran Los Angeles law enforcement watchdog would head up an independent investigation of the incident.

Norman Abrams said he ordered the probe after the university received numerous calls and e-mails from parents and alumni raising concerns about the officers' actions during the videotaped Tuesday night arrest, which has been widely seen on TV news and the YouTube website.

"I want to assure them that the UCLA campus is a safe environment. Student safety and treatment are of paramount concern at UCLA," Abrams said. "We plan to move ahead promptly with a complete and unbiased review."

Abrams appointed Merrick Bobb, who was a staff attorney for the Christopher Commission and currently works as the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors' watchdog over the Sheriff's Department, to handle the probe. Abrams said Bobb has a proven track record looking into allegations of police misconduct, including the Rodney King beating and more recently the riots at the L.A. County jail system.

.....

One of the issues Bobb's investigation will examine is whether the officers complied with the university police rules for using Tasers.

Several local police agencies — including the LAPD and Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department — allow officers to use Tasers only if a suspect poses a physical threat or is acting combatively.

The sheriff's policies expressly say deputies can't use Tasers simply to move someone.

"We look for assaultive conduct," said Bill McSweeney, chief of the sheriff's leadership and training division "We generally don't use the Taser on passive resisters except when an individual indicates explosive action to follow, such as a verbal threat."

But UCLA police are allowed to use Tasers on passive resisters as "a pain compliance technique," Assistant Chief Jeff Young said in an interview Friday.

Under UCLA policy, Young said, officers can use the weapons after considering the potential injury to police and to the individual as well as the level of resistance and the need for prompt resolution.

Young described Tabatabainejad as a "passive resister" who refused to cooperate with officers. He acknowledged that the student didn't actively resist the officers.

"He was 200 pounds and went limp and was very hard to manage. They were trying to get him on his feet," Young said.

The officers used the device in stun mode — which affects only the part of the body being touched — rather than the dart mode, in which tiny electrodes are fired into a person and pass a current through them, disabling the person entirely.

Young said police have used the Tasers "on several occasions" before but said he didn't know how many times.]

Oh, me! Oh, my! The comments range from the angry to vehement defenses of the police. One of the politest things I can say is that logic and reason are not always present. I posted several comments, but I did not bookmark them, so I'm not sure where they are. And I don't see a way under YouTube to find your comments.

However, I did have someone, response to one of my post, and in such cases, YouTube sends you an e-mail indicating the topic, so even thought you may have to plod through the comments you can find the comment and response. I'm using a pseudonym for the original poster.

Poster
As you can see in the video he was leapfrogging and bucking like a horse.How do u say he couldn't stand up while the cops were asking him to stand up.The cops test all devices on themselves first to know the reaction and effects of those devices on criminals.So,they knew for how long he could be recovered after tasing,that was why they were "begging" him to stand up.

raindragon0001
Would this incident have been the same if the person in question was a white, blond sorority girl?

Poster
no because they respect to the laws.

Ah, such perceptive insight and impeccable logic.

By the way, here's an earlier comment from Poster

I'm from iran.I'm sure if he was in iran and told fuck off to the police the police would have hung him on by his testicle to be an example for other students.This guy from now on learned to respect to the rules and laws of the host country.This guy if got taserd in iran he had to run after,not to be asked politely "stand up,stand up" for 10 minutes.I'm very ashamed of his reaction as an iranian.

Photo is from someone with a very different point of view. See Don't F!!k the Police. The photo has had the brightness and contrast enhanced

It struck me that the use of a phone camera is the epitome of Cinéma vérité. Wikipedia - Cinéma vérité says "Cinéma vérité aims for an extreme naturalism, using non-professional actors, nonintrusive filming techniques, hand-held camera, genuine locations rather than sound stages, and naturalistic sound without substantial post-production mixing or voiceovers."

In this case, on the video side, you mostly have jumbled images with no clear shots of the actual events. On the audio side, you have the strong anger of the student, the demands of the police, the agonizing cries of the student and the truly terrifying crackling of the taser that bring to mind the instruments of the facist state.

You find yourself creating the physical events in your mind based on the limited video and the horrifying audio. Literally monsters from the id. Nothing could be more disturbing.

The phone camera and the web stand an excellent chance of reconfiguring how we perceive and process the world.

PAX!