Some interesting stuff in this AP story.
Video of police Tasering a persistent questioner of Sen. John Kerry became an Internet and TV sensation Tuesday, generating fierce debate about free speech and the motives of the college student involved — a known prankster who often posts practical jokes online…. [D]etails from his online writings and videos raised the question of whether his harangue during the forum was genuine or some kind of stunt.
Meyer, a senior telecommunications major from the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Weston, has a Web site featuring several homemade videos. In one, he stands in a street with a sign that says “Harry Dies” after the latest Harry Potter book was released. In another, he acts like a drunk in a bar while trying to pick up a man dressed in drag…. Another site had pictures of Meyer licking a woman’s face and making a suggestive pose as he stood behind a fake cow. The site listed his activities as “getting wasted” and “being ridiculous.” …
Just before Monday’s scuffle started, Meyer asked a woman to tape his exchange with Kerry. One officer said the woman was “there to film him” and that Meyer asked, “Are you taping this? Do you have this? You ready?” before beginning his question….
An officer, however, said in the police report that Meyer’s “demeanor completely changed once the cameras were not in sight” and that he was “laughing” and “lighthearted” on the way to jail.
If that last bit is true …
I'm still allowed to blame John Kerry for not jumping off the stage, tearing his shirt off and beating the cops to death with his Italian loafers, right?
Because even if this kid totally planned this whole thing, repeatedly ignored police warnings and was openly trying to cause a dangerous situation, all in the hope of grabbing 15 minutes of fame, I'm still holding John Kerry personally responsible for not using his Super Duper Special Senate Powers that give him authority over all American law enforcement officials.
Though let's all remember that this is an AP story and the AP is big-time MSM so this is probably just a cover story concoted by a cabal of Skull & Bones members, Opus Dei and Turd Blossom.
is that his asinine sense of humor is beside the point if the police/security tazered him unnecessarily. any word on if he faked being tazered while pinned to the ground?
I'm not a fan of the tasering but the possibility that Meyers intended to be as disruptive and camera-friendly as possible does seem to bolster the whole resisting arrest angle. As it was termed on daily kos by one poster- instead of suicide by police, it was spotlight by police.
Knowing that the cameras, including his own, were on him, it seems likely that he wanted to put on as good a show as possible which in his mind may have included flailing and causing the biggest, loudest, most Action News Story at 11 worthy scene when the cops did intervene (as he knew they would according to the numerous published reports).
Isn't going to a public event with the full intention of creating a disruption and disobeying the established rules the very definition of disturbing the peace?
And honestly, what if some other kids had jumped in and physically confronted the police? Another kid ends up tased or worse just so this dork can get on YouTube.
before asking why was he arrested? Because he ran on too long? His mic was cut off, then the officers started pushing him out. Only then did he begin to “flail.”
because he used profanity (I'm guessing blowjob). That was what the chairman of ACCENTS, the UF group that organized the event, stated. ACCENTS has a policy of no profanity and from what I've read in several sources, the audience was informed before the program began of that policy.
As someone that is well known at UF for hogging mics and going on diatribes at public events, Meyers was warned before entering the auditorium, while inside (along with the entire audience), after he barged to the front of the line and started screaming that he had listened to Kerry's crap for two hours and who knows how many other times that if he used profanity, his mic would be cut and he would be removed.
And it doesn't matter who sponsors the event, as the auditorium is a public forum. As such, any restrictions must be content-neutral. Cutting a mic off after the speaker said a word that is constitutionally protected is not content neutral.
And it doesn’t matter who sponsors the event, as the auditorium is a public forum.
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The auditorium might not even be a limited public forum if someone contracts with the university for its use. The contractor controls the event.
Was it open to the public? Or was it rented out for dress rehearsals?
That doesn't change the fact that the police infringed on his right to speak freely, and they did so before he started to “incite a riot.” The First Amendment doesn't hinge on whether the speaker is trying to pull a stunt or not. That “last bit” doesn't change the fact that Kerry was silent in the face of police aggression and the suppression of free speech. Otherwise, if that last bit was true and was of consequence, then Kerry and the cops would have to have been in on the joke. How likely is that?
I don’t see that there is any more a free speech issue in this case, than I saw a free speech issue in the case at Columbia University. As to the latter, I’m referring to(the protest against the speech of the head of one of the anti-immigrant groups.
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It has long been the case that government can place reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on speech. The example I frequently use is that you don’t have the right to go down a residential street at 3AM blairing you speech at 300dB. I don’t know who invited Kerry to speak at the university or who arranged for the use of the auditorium, but whoever did had the right to control the proceedings there and then.
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If the disruptor wanted to blather on with his speech, after having asked the one question (apparently) that was allotted him, he could have arranged for use of the hall and done so. Or go outside and blather on.
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There is no free speech issue here. The disruptor obviously wanted to dominate the question-and-answer period, and that should not be permitted–and, further, that is why he was arrested for disorderly conduct. Whether or not he should have been tasered is a separate issue.
Time, place, and manner restrictions must be content-neutral. This was anything but. The speaker's mic was cut off after he used the word “blowjob” – which, while it may be profane, is not an obscene or otherwise constitutionally unprotected word. It doesn't matter who sponsored the program, as the auditorium is a public forum.
…who arranged for, and presumably paid for, the use of the space for Kerry’s speech is also an issue. The fellow could arrange for the use of the space for his own diatribes on a non-discrimatory basis. Time, place and manner. Do you have a failure to understand?
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Speech anywhere and everywhere at any time, on any topic, at any decibel level is preposterous. Suppose a student at the college wanted to talk gibberish at 300dB during a lecture; do you really believe that would be allowed as “free speech”? Don’t be silly.
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This fellow apparently wanted to dominate the Q&A session, to the exclusion of everyone else. (I don’t have the ability to view the video here in Germany, but as has been reported in other threads here, he bolted in front of the line of other questioners, not even engaging in simple etiquette). I’m sorry, but I have no sympathy for him whatsoever. Perhaps he should not have been tasered; maybe he should have been tranquilized if he refused to comply with police orders to leave, but that tranquilization has its own problems.
I understand perfectly. But your emphasis on who paid and arranged for the space is misplaced. It took place in a PUBLIC auditorium.
And your parade of horribles is unwarranted. We're not talking about a slippery slope of soundtrucks at 3am and gibberish at 300dB. Clearly that could be regulated based on auditory welfare, etc. Non-content-based restrictions. This incident didn't fit the content-neutral paradigm. It's a threshold question.
This isn't about sympathy. It's about rights.
…and there’s always a but, the “content neutrality” need not be observed at any one specific event.
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Preliminarily, from what I have read, the fellow barged to the front of the question/comment line, which, in itself, was disruptive and probably warranted his removal.
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Regarding “content neutrality,” I do not know who was sponsoring the event at which Kerry spoke, but the sponsors during the event controlled the auditorium and could have ordered him removed during the event. Even if the auditorium was public property.
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I’ll give you two examples. One, the South Boston St. Patricks Day Parade is held on a public street–public property. The organizers have the right to determine who can march in their parade, and can choose to exclude gay groups (marching under their banners). If the city chose to not allow gay groups to hold their own St. Patricks Day Parade, possibly even over the same parade route, but at a different time, that would violate content neutrality. Time, place and manner.
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Two, the annual gay pride parade through Boston, also on public property. The organizers have the right to determine who can march in that parade, and can exclude, for example, anti-gay groups. If anti-gay groups want to have an anti-gay parade at some other place or some other time, and the city refuses to allow them to, that would also violate content neutrality. Again, time, place and manner.
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It would not have violated content neutrality to prevent this disruptor at Kerry’s event from speaking at that time and place. What would have violated content neutrality would be if the university refused to allow him similar access to the auditorium at a different time.
…, it is a side point that isn’t really relevant to the question of what happened. For as I explained below whatever the sponsor’s or hall’s owner’s positions are, the actions in question (right or wrong) were content-neutral. So content doesn’t play into an analysis of what happened.
…I seriously do not understand the “free speech” objection.
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I do understand the potential objection to the tasering, but those are two separate issues, a fact that some people apparently wish to ignore.
While the sponsors could have ordered him out during the event, they could have done so only for disruptive conduct – which, assuming they could have done so for the speaker’s barging in, once they let him in to answer a question (as they relented after Sen. Kerry implored them to), they could no longer remove him unless he was disruptive yet again. They waived that right. The greater power to remove based on disruptive conduct does not include the power to remove based on speech.
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Regarding this point: “Regarding “content neutrality,” I do not know who was sponsoring the event at which Kerry spoke, but the sponsors during the event controlled the auditorium and could have ordered him removed during the event. Even if the auditorium was public property.”
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I don’t know where you get the basis for this. Your parade examples are distinguishable because parades require permits. The permit holder can then restrict who goes on his parade, even if the parade is held in public. The parade is for show, not debate.
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An auditorium like this, however, is open to public participation, at a public place. Who ordered the mic to be cut off and the police to push him away and restrain him? The event sponsors? Even if they’re a private group, the police conduct is imputed to the university, which is a creature of the State of Florida.
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Your view on content neutrality is baffling. It’s as if you say that no harm was done as long as the university could have let the speaker use the auditorium at 3 in the morning.
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And, even if the restriction was content-neutral, the speech restriction was overbroad and an overreaction. Not a narrowly tailored response. See my post below for more on this last point.
… is relevant to what you were addressing with this: “…the speech restriction was overbroad and an overreaction”, but it seems to me that the wanting the guy to stop hijacking the forum by hogging the microphone is not an unreasonable restriction. The manner in which they acted to enforce this ‘restriction’ is another matter.
Wanting to stop a “hijacking of the forum” – that’s why some places have time limits on microphones. That would be a content neutral restriction that is narrowly tailored. We’re not sure if this is the case here. We have cops pushing him right after the mic got cut off (why?) and while he was still speaking. Pushing and restraining. Not reasonable and not narrowly tailored.
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“The manner in which they acted” is not “another matter” – it’s part of the same time, place, and manner restriction. Don’t take my word for it – read this case: http://caselaw.lp.fi…
… restriction to be content-neutral, you mean that given different content the restrictions would still be justified, then this incident does look content-neutral to me. From what I gather the principal objection was his self-allotted time at the microphone. Nobody contested what he was saying until he hijacked the forum by hogging the microphone. If he did the same thing with different content the result would have been the same.
All of the above reasoning, of course, does not condone the content-neutral resultant actions by the officers.
The only way the speech restriction was content neutral is, as you’ve said, it would have been done with different content – a less ebullient speaker, no use of the word “blowjob.” But this is all speculation. You can’t say for sure that his mic got cut off because of time limitations, just as I can’t say for sure that his mic got cut off because he said the word “blowjob” (or any number of other things he said). What militates in my favor is that the mic got cut off very quickly after he said the word “blowjob,” and then the police very quickly moved in to push him away and then restrain him. Which brings up another issue that implicates time, place, and manner. I didn’t bring this up earlier because I didn’t want us to get bogged down in constitutional law nuances, but here it is: for a content-neutral restriction to be permissible, it must be narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest. US v Grace, 1983. How is pushing and restraining the speaker (not to mention tazering him) a narrowly tailored response to serve whatever government interest they can think of?
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You even impliedly admitted the latter by saying, “All of the above reasoning, of course, does not condone the content-neutral resultant actions by the officers.”
“How is pushing and restraining the speaker (not to mention tazering him) a narrowly tailored response to serve whatever government interest they can think of?”
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Is that a statement of concern for ‘what is a reasonable reasonable restriction?’ or for ‘what is a reasonable act to enforce a restriction?’.
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Point taken about the blowjob comment though.
I’m saying that police restraint and arrest of a speaker who is not being disruptive at that moment is an overreaction (remember, any disruption earlier was waived and cannot be acted upon while he’s speaking). In constitutional law language, this is not a “narrowly tailored response” to serve an important government interest – peace and order, etc.
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Withregards to your question – the act here of pushing and restraining is not one used to “enforce a restriction” – it’s part of the restriction.
… it makes no logical sense to me. To link the two is to imply that it is impossible (in any hypothetical situation) to act badly only in the manner of enforcement while acting properly in allowing free speech. Since I can imagine a hypothetical incident where it isn’t impossible (everyone gets 60 seconds to say whatever they want, then when someone goes into 61 seconds we shoot him or her), the association doesn’t seem to hold. Clearly a rule about the time, manner, and place of speech and a rule about what is permissible to do potential violators are separate rules (that relate to each other, but clearly separate).
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If the legal opinion can’t accommodate that framework, it is probably flawed.
it’s that the law takes into account broader principles than merely linking together sequenial events. They may seem like separate events if you place them in isolation, but you have to remember what this looks like under the lens of free speech: a guy gets up to speak, and 2 minutes later he is on the ground getting tazered. Is this the kind of America you want to live in? I don’t mean that in a polemical sense, but if we dissect each incident and hold apart its constituent moments, we lose sight of the right to speak freely. Letting this incident go without scrutiny or vindication creates an intolerable chilling effect on public discourse. That’s what as stake.
“…we lose sight of the right to speak freely”
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The actions of the officers only interfered with the right to speak freely in perception, not in fact. If an officer beat a suspect for actually jaywalking, it wouldn’t be a clear violation on the suspect’s freedom of movement, it would be a violation of the suspect’s right not to be unreasonably beaten when arrested.
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“Letting this incident go without scrutiny or vindication…”
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I have no intention of promoting that this be ‘let go’. I just want the facts to be clear and linking the behavior of the officers to not unreasonably impinging on the man’s speech, clouds the issue of what really happened here. What happened hear was not that a reasonable man was silenced,… what happened here was a beating.
The speaker was still talking after the mic was cut off, when he was being dragged away. How is that not a interference with the right to speak freely in fact?
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Besides, a beating that occurs right on the heels of passionate dissent looks very suspicious. Whether it interfered with the right to speak in appearance or reality, this incident cannot be analyzed as if it were an ordinary car accident, in which a court would scrutinize the timeline to determine cause-and-effect and would be careful to place liability on a private citizen. We’re talking about the First Amendment here. It looks bad for cops to beat someone on the heels of passionate dissent. It erodes our credibility overseas as a bastion of feedom. I don’t see this alternative argument as “clouding the issue.” Whether he was just beaten and not silenced does nothing to stop the next person from keeping his mouth shut. And we all lose because of it.
If… “It looks bad for cops to beat someone on the heels of passionate dissent”, then it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is bad “for cops to beat someone on the heels of passionate dissent”. Whether it is becomes a matter of investigation of fact not perception. Is is suspicious… yes, of course. But upon further examination, enforcement technique aside, his speech rights were not impinged.
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If you could prove that the enforcement action’s harshness was intended to stop the next person from opening his or her mouth, then you could say it was conspiracy to impinge on speech rights. Again, by all means, be suspicious, but in suspicion investigate fact before pronouncing that the enforcement was necessarily in and of itself a free speech impingement.
but the enforcement action’s harshness need not be intended to stop the next person from opening his/her mouth. It’s going to happen regardless. My point is the free speech impingement is not reducible to a criminal investigation. Causality need not be as tight, because we have to take into account effects on squelching future speech, which can happen because of unintended (but not unforseeable) consequences.
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In a sense, what I am proposing is a higher standard of care for police and event organizers in public debate events. Maybe not so high as strict liability (although maybe yes). But the burden should be on the state to prove that it’s conduct would not result in a chilling effect.
“free speech impingement is not reducible to a criminal investigation.”
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It’s going to be fun trying to prosecute civil rights violations if there is no point in investigating facts.
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“Causality need not be as tight, because we have to take into account effects on squelching future speech, which can happen because of unintended (but not unforseeable) consequences.”
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So we are to add the charge of squelching free speech to the charge of assault because the unintended (and perhaps unforseen) perceptions of others that they may have been squelching the victim’s speech rights? Are we to do this despite the fact that the perception was, in fact, wrong?
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“In a sense, what I am proposing is a higher standard of care for police and event organizers in public debate events.”
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That’s reasonable.
“free speech impingement is not reducible to a criminal investigation.”
It’s going to be fun trying to prosecute civil rights violations if there is no point in investigating facts.
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Two things: if the speaker is alleging constl. violation as a reason for quashing the assault charges, then my statement stands. If the speaker brings a civil rights suit against the cops, then he would need to prove a constitutional violation by a preponderance of evidence. Again, less than beyond reasonable doubt standard used in criminal investigation. May not win, I concede that point.
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“So we are to add the charge of squelching free speech to the charge of assault because the unintended (and perhaps unforseen) perceptions of others that they may have been squelching the victim’s speech rights?”
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To clarify, the state would charge assault, not the speaker. The speaker could only charge unlawful arrest (unlikely) or a 42 USC 1983 (constitutional violation) action. All of this debate would arise in the context of whether to quash the charges against the speaker. That’s where the squelching of free speech would come in, as a policy argument / constitutional violation.
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“Are we to do this despite the fact that the perception was, in fact, wrong?”
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Whether the perception is wrong or not is open for debate. I say yes, you say no. I guess it comes down to what the judge thinks in the context of a motion to quash the assault charges, whose opinion is informed by amicus briefs, societal norms, etc.
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I say we put this to rest, no?
…then we can discuss the ConLaw issues of the case. I have given you two examples of cases in which people do not have the right to speak whenever and whereever and for as long as they want to, on public property, one of which actually went all the way to the Supreme Court. That was the South Boston St Patricks day parade.
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And the Supreme Court ruled along the lines that I described.
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What more is there to say? You have no idea what you are writing about. And, accordingly, it is a waste of time and storage to continue this discussion.
This discussion is truly over. You’re quite unpleasant.
..are you using here?
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To disrupt is to interrupt or impede the progress, movement or procedure of.
This moron most certainly was all that.
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Though some not so deep thinkers have attempted to frame the tazering as “punishment” for exercising his 1A rights, it is obvious to any rational person viewing the incident that Meyer himself escalated the situation from a simple lawful request by campus police to end his disruption, into a physical confrontation – replete with over the top theatrics and feigned agony.
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Yeah, a real brain trust is li’l Andy Meyer.
I could clearly hear him telling the police to let the kid speak and that he was happy to answer the questions.
that this was a staged incident is also real. In the youtube video, the one where you actually see him asking Kerry the question the officers are standing right behind him already. It is common knowledge(at least to anti-Illuminati people) that the keyword “Greg Palast” brings out the same response from “law enforcement types” that Ruby Ridge, Waco and the grassy knoll does.
The message here is clear “look what happens to people who question authority”, observe also how this did not start a riot, nobody else steped in and a United States “Senator” watched the whole thing and then made himself look lower than pond scum with his comments.
CIA black-op? Not out of the question, especially because it received wide coverage on MSM corpo-propaganda media. Don't believe me, http://www.projectcensored.org.
Their new list is out! Oh, forgot to add Allah Akbar!
If you run the video backwards, you can see Karl Rove in the background. Or was this a DNC op?
He should have been asked to leave. He should have left when asked by officers. When he was placed under arrest, he should not have tried to run, either to the back of the room or then later toward the front. At that point, he had lost his publicity stunt.
Once you're placed under arrest, never resist. Never run. When you do those things, you lose. If you're not interested in cooperating, go completely limp. Limp bodies are hard to move, but non-threatening. It will help reduce the chance that you get maced, tased, or billy clubbed.
Tasers are not non-lethal weapons. They are less-lethal weapons. They can result in permanant damage, and they can result in death. There's no question that this kid was performing and committing all sorts of jackassery, and eventually crossed a point where a “catch and release” arrest was justified, since free speech doesn't give you the right to disrupt an event, political or otherwise. However, he should not have been tased. He was under reasonable control by the 3, 4, 5 officers, and did not pose a legitimate public safety threat to the officers or the public.
As for “acting” when being tased, he wasn't. Tasing results in significant muscle spasms and cries of pain well after the tasing has stopped. In fact, there's been more than one case where officers have tased a victim, and the muscle spasms were interpreted as aggressive behavior, resulting in multiple tases.
For a really disturbing taser video, have a look at UCLA Police Taser someone in Powell Llibrary. It's graphic and disturbing, and not work safe.
Remember, acting like a jerk — or even breaking the law — doesn't make one “deserve” to be tortured, and tasing someone is torturing that person.
…he progably should have been hog-tied, put onto a stretcher and thrown out of the amphitheater.
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He could have figured out out to undo the hog-tie himself, but not re-admitted to the amphitheater.
I've never been tased, but I have been shocked by one of those electric dog collars (it was a dare) and it was extremely painful. It was painful enough for me to now be under the impression that I would rather be maced than tased (I have been maced, also a dare) because the mace was pretty damn bad, but I feel like the taser would have been way more painful just by comparing voltages with that and the dog collar.
Why was the taser their first line of defense? I saw an arrest in public once, and one of the cops got the guy by the pressure point in his collarbone til the guy begged the cop to stop. There's plenty of ways to inflict lots of physical pain upon people to make them cooperative or receptive without pulling out the taser and electrocuting them.
Also: an article I read said one of the cops attempted to taser him in the chest but his taser failed to discharge so another cop had to taser him in the shoulder. Assume this is a danger to the cops situation: it failed to discharge? Now they have to use their guns. Greaaaat non-lethal force, there.
…110 v. AC, not particularly bad
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220 v. AC, like we have here in Germany, there is a reason why their fixtures are recessed, so that you cannot come into contact with the electrodes.
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The gem in all of this is that, when I was a teenager, I had a friend who was an amateur radio operator. For a reason that I do not recall, he opened his transmitter and touched the contact to the output tube (this was in the mid 1960s, when they still had tubes). The voltage at the contact was 800v DC, much higher energy than AC (RMS). It sent him flying across the room. Literally. Fortunately, he survived, but it did take him a while to gather his witts together.
…I^2R The power supply of my friend’s transmitter was quite capable of delivering much higher current levels, and that was why he was thrown across the room when he touched the anode contact on the transmitter tube.
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Irrespective of that, I don’t particularly like the fact that anyone has access to these Taser devices.
I remember one of the science teachers in 8th grade did this in front of the class. I thought it was cool.
…I know how to make a pipe bomb, too, as well as a saturday night special. I even know how to make lead bullets for my father’s reproduction civil war musket (would you?) because I have done so. I also cleaned his musket, and loaded it for him.
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But the Taser company is now selling Taser devices on the open market. That is the problem. Impact someone who is wearing a pacemaker and what happens? Your guess is as good as mine.
but the saturday night special is beyond me. Bombs are easy enough to make, sad to say. May I ask….Taser, are they requiring permits for the devices?
…One, I’m actually surprised that anyone here would know how to mould a lead bullet. I learned how to do so in the early 1960s when my father was involved in the Civil War centennial North/South Skirmish Association’s shoot-em-ups in the mid-west. They were great fun, and (lest anyone wonder) the only animals that were killed were clay pigeons.
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As to permitting for the Tasers, I don’t know. I’ve seen advertisements in American media (including over the Internet) but I’ve never seen any indication that a permit was required to purchase a device.
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I’ll go a bit to the side. The NRA, before NRA national became an almost totally political organization, did a yeoman’s job at teaching firearm safety and safe handling. It appears that, at the national level at least, they have jettisoned that. It truly is a shame that they have done that.
http://money.cnn.com…
…did the police take the woman who, apparently, recorded the incident in a cospiracy with the accused, into custody, to question her as well?
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If they didn’t, why didn’t they?
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This silliness about “Kerry cracking a joke” about it may just have been to calm the audience down. I suppose that Kerry could have gone on and on in a long tirade about the incident, but that is not how “calming the audience down” is done.
Note the picture: The cop has a taser drawn on the student before he's even in the back of the auditorium and on the ground. T-R-I-G-G-E-R H-A-P-P-Y.
I love how the media is framing this issue. “He has a web site with pranksterism on it….so….you know…it was a prank. He was asking for it, i guess. ”
I can here her turning to her co-anchor and he replies smarmly, of course, “Well, Jane, I better be careful with my pranks, that looks like it smarts!” Giggles all around.
Was he grandstanding? The facts are he was cut off after one minute and 30 seconds into his questioning, which may have been uncomfortable for Kerry and maybe event the audience, but grandstanding? Really, his questions were well informed (check his website for the writings of a well informed and sensible young man.
Was he excited about confronting Kerry? Probably. Was he determined to get his point across? Definitely. Was he obnoxious? Yeah, a little loud. Last time I checked that wasn't a crime?
Honestly, what is up with all the people blaming the kid? As if none of you have been riled up about politics, or about speaking in public. This is John Kerry, the man who rolled over for Bush. Is anyone's blood starting to boil? Well, make sure you stay home. Stick your finger in a socket or something.
The kid was impassioned. He was assertive. He was a threat I guess, right? Please! We should all be applauding this kid. We should be googling “taser” and finding out how much it is used and misused.
Is Andrew media savvy? Yes. Did he know how to react to get the most attention? Maybe. Was his civil rights and freedom of speech violated? Yes. Was he abused by the police? Yes.
So, why are so many people blaming this kid? It just might be that being concerned with our civil rights being violated is too big of a bite. “The police can't possibly be using the same tacticts against students as they do in the Bronx? I think I need another martini, make it a double!”
The video of Reverend Yearwood at Petraus' hearing is “blacked out”, no pun intended. We all remember the sociological experiments where you are flashed a picture of a white dude holding up a black guy and then asked what happened. We are being socially engineered to believe that the police always have a reason. That these pumped up people with weapons are looking to protect us from ourselves.
Naomi Klein is right. This incident, and others is a litmus test for the country. Will we put up with a police state or not? And if you don't get angry for a punk kid being tased, “tased” sounds like fun, like laser tag, right, then you might get angry at the older people dying from it, or the pregnant woman getting it, or the young woman at a protest in Pittsburgh, or…..
For the record, Kerry put out a press release on this event:
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…but this time he handled his part of the situation perfectly. His job was to answer questions. He did so to the best of his ability.
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Beyond his control, he had the staged drama of some kid yelling like a banshee and police that were incompetent at best.
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Hats off to Mr. Kerry.
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As far as the student and the police, they should be dismissed.
Was John Stewart’s assessment. I think he got it just about right, although I’d put a big more stress on the douchbaggerie side, or is it douchebaggery.