Check it out at 15 seconds remaining. That white guy tazering him has got a distinctly creepy grin, very much like Hannibal Lecter.

But I still believe
And I will rise up with fists!!

and not a greatly effective law enforcement device. it just makes arrest easier for lazy and sadistic cops.

that we even allow it speaks volumes about our "civilization." we don't allow police to beat people's faces with their fists (oh, wait, we do) and we shouldn't allow tasering. it's barbaric.

IMHO at least as bad as "sheeple." Doesn't help us get a better world if we throw around generalized epithets that don't apply to the many good folks that label gets hung on.

With that particular guy, I did notice the grin which seemed pretty disgusting under the circumstances.

BTW, I do not flinch from hurling epithets at people who voluntarily support groups like today's GOP or oppressive Christianist organizations. I see that as a whole lot different from taking the job as a law enforcement officer. When one dredges up "pig," one's dredging up a nasty stereotype.

[Note: this is in response to a now-deleted post.]

1. The police had no reason to do what they did (given a Constitutional framework; from other perspectives, they had every reason);

2. The guy's analysis is poor, since he slides over to CT and can't ask a simple question simply (he might as well be a Senator...)

3. Kerry does not use his authority at the podium to control the situation (which, come to think of it, was also his failure in 2004);

4. The crowd does nothing. (Though I'm not in the hall, so I can't tell what the group dynamics were).

Nobody comes out looking good from this. The best possible outcome IMNSHO would have been for the crowd to have formed a circle around the policemen, cell cameras upraised. The policemen would have stopped, which would have been a great teaching moment for all of us.

NOTE Vehement agreement on "pig." Feral hogs, of course, now that's another matter....

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

Okay, thought better of it. I will leave the cop-hating to the professionals.

But I still believe
And I will rise up with fists!!

VL says says it's a "nasty stereoptype."

You reference "Animal Farm."

How does that engage VL's point?

One of my takeaways from, oh, my entire adult life, is that rhetoric is very important, and that misdirected rhetoric can be very destructive to ends that we hope to achieve. I don't deny the force of your allusion, but since it didn't occur to me, and I'm (though I say it) super-literate, I doubt that it will occur to others. So all that's left is the nastiness. Not effective. Misdirected.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

"Meyer was arrested on charges of resisting an officer and disturbing the peace, according to Alachua County jail records, but the State Attorney's Office had yet to make the formal charging decision. Police recommended charges of resisting arrest with violence, a felony, and disturbing the peace and interfering with school administrative functions, a misdemeanor."

Pretty soon we'll be like Singapore, where chewing gum can get you thrown in jail.

So they guy asks "Why did you pull an Al Gore and concede an election wraught with fraud?"

Is treated as if he just said the earth is flat,

Appears to be tazed after he is cuffed.

while a room full of people let a handful of cops take him away.

This is really sacry. The only place in history when I've seen american totalitarianism cross the racial divide so fast is reconstruction. That is the one time in history barring the draft riots of the civil war where the interest that control the state just cut loose. CD, Soon as I get some breathing room . . . this is fucking fascinating.

It's funny how this shit comes around. "Makes me wanna holla . . . "

The shorter version of sluttish, pouty-lipped, autocoprophagic concentration camp advocate Michelle Malkin:

He was asking for it.

How tiresomely predictable.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

Via pandagon:

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

The tasering yes. No reason for that. We need to get rid of that particular weapon. There really is never a good enough reason to use it. This one was outrageous.

I think you are all being a bit glib about the total condemnation of the audience and of Kerry.

From what I've read, this particular kid had drawn attention to himself before Kerry even began his talk, and had some kind of verbal interaction with the police. Also not on most of the video's, he was standing at the end of a long line of people waiting to get to the mike and he pushed his way into the first position, essentially hijacked the mike out of turn. That's what brought the police to his side instantly, and why they were telling him to give up the mike. Kerry interceded and told the police to let him ask his question, then the student proceeded to give a speech. At that point i think the police were wrong to insist that he stop, until he gave some sign that he was never going to finish. Frankly, I think some of his behavior appears to be disturbed. However, threats and manhandling are not the way to handle someone in a disturbed state.

I think it's a bit much to condemn the entire audience without knowing more about what was going on. Yes, wouldn't it be nice if several people in the minute or so that all this was happening t could have met, organized themselves so as to be able to get near to the action without having to step over members of the audience. What I hear in that silence from the audience is confusion as to what is going on. And that drone in the background is Kerry telling the police that it's okay, to let the kid continue to talk.

Remember the tasering happened outside of the auditorium proper.

We do have a police problem in this country, a big one. And I think we can be critical of the police's part in this without having to condemn an audience we know nothing about, and Kerry himself, who has criticized the police's handling of the entire incident; he didn't know about the tasering until he'd left the auditorium, apparently.

The notion that any of us is in a position to prescribe what Kerry's behavior should have been if he was a real 'MAN!!!!, without knowing for instance, what kind of stage he was standing on, how far away from the incident he was, how much of what was going on he could see, and that there was something wrong about him calling for people to stay calm and seated just strikes me as insufferably smug and self-satisfied a critique as the kind one hears all the time from those manly rightwing bloggers.

Jane Hamersher recently took Elizabeth Edwards to task for being critical of the MoveOn Petraeus ad, because, according to Jane, we have strict rules about this kind of thing, i.e., we do not use rightwing memes to attack fellow liberals, progressive and lefties, and, presumably Democrats. Well, coulda fooled me, Jane. Sometimes I have the feeling on any given day that all I read on blogs and especially in comment threads is attacks on the very people we hope to have standing next to us at the barricades. Especially at Firedoglake. Gee, now and then, even here at Corrente. I say that even though I agree with Jane's take on the MoveOn ad and disagree with Mrs. Edward's.

If you think rightwingers aren't able to say, out of one side of their mouths, that the kid "deserved" it, but that Kerry was a pussy for not having stopped the police out of the other, you've been shirking on your daily minimum requirement of rightwing shit-eating.

About the tassering, I think we should be making a huge fuss, and Pam at Pandagon was brilliant to link to the other even more horrifying incident in New York. And wasn't there an incident at UCLA not so long ago where students were tassered? We need to keep track of these and bring it up over and over again, until mainstream America gets it through that lizard part of our brains that it can happen to us, any of us.

BTW, Kerry no longer has secret service protection and he employs no security personnel himself. The Florida newspapers are reporting the university had total responsibility for security at the event. Their response may have been influenced by Virginia Tech - a determination not to let signs of hostility go unnoticed and unresponded to. That doesn't make it right; in fact, I think it likely that too many college campuses may be learning exactly the wrong lesson from the failures of the Virginia Tech administration. Something to keep an eye out for in the future.

but as a student journalist 20-plus years ago did a piece on the then-hawt-new "stun gun" personal security device.

Knocks the crap out of you, particularly applied to the (ahem) frontal anatomy of a female subject.

Our local cop shop has had two tasering incidents resulting in lawsuits in the last three years -- one of those resulted in a fatality, but the victim had been drinking and smacked his head pretty hard falling during the arrest.

Moral of the story: Do NOT piss off people who are better armed than you are.

Guy assaulted other students in line, hijacked the microphone, went on an incoherent, interminable rant, refused to leave when asked politely and then resisted arrest including hitting one of the officers and flailing around, refusing to hold still to be handcuffed. Multiple criminal actions lead to an arrest - there's a shocking result, eh?

This guy was NOT practicing free speech, he was usurping the rights of others to their free speech and assaulted multiple students and police in the process. Not a free speech issue here, just criminal behavior by someone who appears to be mentally ill. Poor fellow, hope he gets the help he needs, but his is not behavior I'd walk across the street to support.

As to being tasered it is the same as the old stun gun, feels approximately like sticking a car key into a wall socket if you'd like to have the experience. Anyone setting out to commit civil disobedience ought to be prepared to experience the arrest procedure, and if you resist arrest you can expect to get roughed up and these days probably tasered or some pepper-spray. Big deal. Compared to the old days, where what you got was a thorough beatdown with batons, the taser is a walk in the park - no blood, no stitches, no blinding three-day headache - a big improvement IMHO.

A careful viewing of the video shows that the handcuff was on his right wrist but not on the left when he was tasered, and he was still struggling even after he was warned that he would be tasered if he kept fighting. The taser was used to get his attention, which it did, without harming him or further endangering him or the arresting officers. Perfectly reasonable under the circumstances.

As to that "evil grin" it happened after the cuffs were finally put on and it was clearly a signal of all clear to the other officer he was facing, a sign of relief not a smirk of evil. Too much projection here.

Why on earth would anyone embrace the criminal behavior of this poor mental case as a cause célèbre? There are lots of cases of civil rights being usurped. This isn't one of them.

Blaming Kerry is completely ridiculous. He isn’t responsible for the behavior of the disruptive student, the UF administrators or the police. How rude to suggest that he is. Lambert, really, look at what you wrote – “Kerry does not use his authority at the podium to control the situation…" Failure to be sufficiently authoritarian in support of criminal behavior, yessir, there’s a progressive indictment. That’s what is all over the MSM and Fox, “Kerry…hard question…taser…free speech.” Nice job repeating their lies.

Xeno, classic photo of Huey but this lame-brained white boy isn’t comparable in any way. You want civil rights violations, try this one.

As to the pity party over being tasered, well - Wussies.

... about him shoving his way to the mic but I haven't seen footage yet. I'm having a hard time seeing why the guy had to be dragged out / cuffed / tased, but more context is more context, so we'll see (I assume).

Speaking of buying into authoritarian memes, yelling "wuss" at those who don't like to see a fellow citizen being subdued by electric shocks -- for, apparently, exercising his right of free speech -- sounds like the province of Free Republic.

Kerry is a wuss, in your way of looking at it, B.I.O., because he said, "I could have handled the situation without interruption." Only a wuss would have preferred not to see a young man get dragged off, tased, etc.

in Tasering people for insufficient Civility. I don't care how big a douchebag he is (and it appears is is quite the douchebag), until I see proof that he was shoving people out of line I'm gonna call it blatantly excessive.

But I still believe
And I will rise up with fists!!

I've gotten way too sensitive on the taser thing. Sorry, my bad. Or not.

Hilariously, the UF President propagates the Civility meme:

"The thing that I regret is that civil dialogue and civil discourse did not happen," [University of Florida President J. Bernard Machen] said. "That's fundamental to a university campus. Why it didn't happen is what we're trying to sort out."

Well, no, it didn't exactly.

Sure, Meyer's an asshole and a provacateur, and so what? (Granted, that does explain why the crowd kept their seats. As I said above, group dynamics.) Nevertheless, if you've ever heard the Opposition baying at the Prime Minister in Parliament, that's about the level of what was going on here.

The episode also shows the problems--and here's where I think Meyer really does have problems--with pissant-level propaganda of the deed. Compare that episode to the one CD describes here. I have to think that quoting Lexis-Nexis and court cases is, in the long range, going to be a hell of a lot more effective than going all CT and screaming about Skull and Bones.

I stand by my remarks on Kerry. His press guy said on Kos (kudos) that Kerry was open on the campaign trail as opposed to Bush (true and kudos). And the answer as to why Kerry was ineffective in controlling the situation? It's a large hall. Well, I don't think the video shows that it's that large. I say again it's a telling metaphor for the bad in campaign 2004 (as well as, in the open-ness, the good).

Bringiton, if you must conflate "authority" and "authoritarian," will you please do so where it does not distort my argument? Thanks in advance.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

it's "only" like sticking your keys in a socket? excuse me, but for some of us, that's unbearable. i guess it's "only" a little water up your nose when they waterboard you too. and being annoying and socially incorrect? clearly, a MAJOR CRIME that deserves PUNISHMENT. physical, public punishment, from a gang of armed, legally empowered uniformed figures. yes, that's exactly what i enforce when i have a party or guests over for dinner and one of them is embarrassing himself.

"Bring out the Taser!" i scream, and all of us pile on and have a little sadistic fun. afterwards, we praise Jeebus and compare notes on how we can be more Civil. and not say Fuck.

what.ever. it'd be really nice if i lived in a civilized nation. but clearly, i don't. and not just because of republicans.

...The tasering yes. No reason for that. We need to get rid of that particular weapon.

Barring that, we need to come up with something that shorts one out, preferably arcing on the shooter while protecting the victim. Something people can wear under street clothes.

No Hell below us
Above us, only sky

KelleyB, i love your idea in general. A defense against a taser--a defense against any of the authoritarian crowd-control devices for that matter--is good. But the making-it-arc-back-on-the-shooter seems a bit unstable. Hard to control. Not to mention that it would constitute attack on a police officer, generally not something that defense attorneys advise as a helpful move.

So what we need is something to drain the shock, both to protect the attacked and, if possible, to suck so much juice out of the device that is no longer usable. Those things aren't very big, and can't very well hold much in the way of battery/power storage/power generation capability.

Anybody got a spare taser we can work with? I'm picturing a garment--for our Mormon comrades, perhaps undergarment?--which diffuses the current, possibly containing a capacitor type device which will vacuum the power out of the gun and into the defense vest. We need a working device to take apart and analyze.

Are they standardized yet or do they still make different versions, like the one from a few years ago that shot little darts out attached to wires inthe gun that carried the current into the victim? The newer ones seem to be self-contained with the two points you have to jam up into the target. You can tell I have never laid eyes, much less hands, on one, but I'm just the high-concept person here.

Better yet, have any of our readers ever been through training on use of a taser in a situation like this, a takedown/intimidation/crowd control scenario? What part of the body are you instructed to aim at? What variations are in most widespread use and what other designs are common enough we have to make our Taser Sponge(tm) capable of coping with?

It's the ultimate tool of nonviolent protest. You not only don't respond to violence, you make the violence impossible. Of course to the authoritarian mind that means they just have to rachet back up to billy clubs, fire hoses and real guns, but those are very ugly when the video is put up on YouTube.

Surely the tinfoil would short one out? Well, probably not, since the taser wouldn't actually come in contact with the undergarments, unless... Well, let's not go there.

Still, there has to be a technique.

Maidenform bras? "Underwire for the progressive male," and so forth?

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

As a long time advocate of mylar instead of tinfoil chapeaus, let me suggest a mylar vest with an insulated copper ground wire. You might also have a kelvar layer underneath to insulate and protect against when the bullets the Man (i won't say 'pigs' because that offends tender sensibilities) forget to load rubber bullets.

Have you ever seen videos of what happens when a cluster of mylar ballons hits a high tension line?

As I understand a taser, the leads arc the current through the skin, producing smasmodic muscle contraction beneath it.

Maybe we want to consider microwave protection as well...

No Hell below us
Above us, only sky

As a former electrical engineering student, let me suggest that you connect the ground wire to the ground. (Or, for shits and giggles and pounding three-day headaches, to the nearest _{pig fuzz po} representative of The Man.)

But I still believe
And I will rise up with fists!!

http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/911.html

On the market already.

But I'm sure such weapons are only dangerous in the hands of an unscrupulous government.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

What happens when those microwaves hit metal?
like putting tin-foil or a metal pot in the microwave oven really messes up the machinery.
Would it have the same effect in the street?

A Quick Study, But A Slow Learner

The better to spread Free(trade)dom all over you with, my dear.

No Hell below us
Above us, only sky

Excellent summary. So the idea of teh National Security State is to frustrate metallic ware that might frustrate the microwave weapon, they employ a laser pulse to puncture the metal, so the cops can microwave you?
brilliant!

Me? A Quick Study, A Slow Learner

...but it is amazing the kinds of bizarre weaponry Darth Rumsfeld pushed through before the younger fascists invited him onward- in his case, to pasture in academia. It being likely he knew an offer he was not allowed to refuse when he heard it.

My solution to this kind of weapon if we encounter it? A good connected firehose, if possible. Water gets really hot but absorbs a whole helluva lot of energy doing it. It shorts the hell out sophisticated electronics. Just make sure you're wearing your kevlar if you reply in this non-violent but antagonistic fashion, because if they have this kind of toy aimed at you they likely have M-16s, too.

No Hell below us
Above us, only sky

And no, this won’t happen often so relish the moment.

Didn’t intend to drop a grenade and not stick around for the aftermath, bad form, sorry about that but life, or rather the tenuous nature thereof, intervened. Having resumed an approximation of consciousness I am here to clean up my mess.

Also please accept my apology to any who were offended by the term “wussy”, wasn’t meaning to yell at all and had no idea it would be seen as anything other than a reasonably acceptable chide since that’s the way it has been used by everyone I know for many years, but this is a different community and if the ever-proper vastleft feels it was inappropriate then it must be and so - sorry about that, no harm intended. Comparing my writing to the contents of Free Republic, however, is unjustified and presumably hyperbole, though I grant you I do not fit neatly into any pre-shaped little philosophical box. Malvina Reynolds instructs us on the importance of avoiding such a dismal fate. I am a proud past member of the IWW, the Teamsters Union and the NRA and see no conflict in those associations.

On the other hand, here’s Amanda fricking Congden getting tasered and if she and the girls can shake it off how altogether bad can it really be?

Does it hurt? Well, yes it does, it’s supposed to. So do batons, pepper spray, body slams, arm twists, boots, fists, and guns. Some of them hurt more than others, and some of them can kill. The taser hurts a lot less than most; the effects wear off almost immediately, and the lethality is almost, if not entirely, nil. There is no better tool for police to use for subduing a persistently recalcitrant subject, and that claim will be the subject of my next comment/reply.

And when properly used they are safe and effective, just what useful tools are supposed to be. Can they be misused? Of course they can, same as anything, but misuse is about the person not the tool. Judgments about safety, utility and humaneness need to rest on the tool itself and the effects when it is properly employed, not from a focus on the few abuses. The cure there is in removing the abusers from authority and learning how to prevent future abuse, not in removing the tool from those who would use it responsibly.

Anecdotes not withstanding, the Taser is a very safe device. From an electrophysiological standpoint it cannot directly affect the heart, as all of the energy is dissipated within the skeletal musculature and the skin and the frequency is outside of the range that can interfere with cardiac rhythm. An exhaustive review of the function and effect of tasering is presented here, required reading for an informed opinion. The short version is that tasers are sometimes associated with death because they are commonly used on people who are for a wide variety of reasons at heightened risk of sudden death.

Rather than relying on anecdotes there is now a report on the frequency and causes of arrest-related deaths covering forty million arrests over three years, from 2003-2005. In the report itself there is specific consideration devoted to tasers, and on Page 22 the statistics are summarized. Of 2,002 arrest-related deaths, 36 were in some way related to the use of a taser. In 36 of 36 cases the detainee either was intoxicated or exhibited one of the following behaviors: Threatened officers, 36%; Resisted arrest, 81%; Tried to flee, escape arrest, 44%; Grabbed, hit or fought with officers, 42% or Used weapon to threaten/assault officers, 31%. In 34/36 cases the detainee exhibited two or more of these behaviors. Many of the arrests involved other use of force or restraint in addition to the taser. In 17 cases the taser was held to be a primary cause of death, but only two deaths were ruled to be homicide, the remainder being primarily accidental or the result of drug intoxication and pre-existing medical conditions, circumstances that could have occurred whether the taser or another forceful restraint was employed.

Thus we see that of 40,000,000 arrests with 2,002 related deaths, only two deaths were the result of taser homicide. Odds then of taser death during arrest are 20,000,000:1. Assuredly, one unnecessary death is too many, and efforts to reduce the existing small number are worthwhile. Usage guidelines emphasize limiting the number and duration of shocks, the principle contributing act associated with most deaths. (It is also risky although not deadly to combine the use of taser and pepper spray. Warning, macabre humor involved, not suitable for those inclined towards, ahh, The Vapors.)

We certainly do not have a police “problem” in this country. Are there some police who act outside the law? Yes there are, just as in any human endeavor, but that is no justification for condemning law enforcement personnel as a whole. I’ve had contact with police from both ends, been tear gassed and had my scalp split and been rousted and herded and corralled and arrested (trespass, unlawful assembly, failure to disperse, inciting to riot, resisting arrest, most of the times I was just held and released but once there was a $200 misdemeanor fine, that was an Ouch! moment) . I’ve also called them for protection and investigation of crimes and threats directed at me and mine, and been deeply grateful for their presence. I am a big supporter of people who serve the public good in law enforcement, and hold no ill will whatsoever for the altercations. I was the one who put my self at risk by my behavior - they were just doing their job.

It would be nice if we lived in a world where criminals, the violently mentally ill and those menacingly deranged by drugs would meekly comply with arresting officers, but we don’t. According to FBI statistics, over that same 2003-2005 time period there were at least 174,760 assaults on law enforcement officers and 395 deaths in the line of duty, 165 directly at the hands of criminals. All too frequently police have to make exceedingly dangerous split-second decisions and almost all of the time they get it right. The more tools they have to affect successful arrest while minimizing danger to themselves and others, the better off everyone is. The Taser is one of those tools.

A great deal of outrage has been expressed here and elsewhere over this event, and a lot of mistaken reporting and misinterpretation. Let’s run through it once more in detail.

Multiple video clips are available. None of them appear to show the allegations of pushing by Meyer prior to his speaking so let’s just set aside those eye-witness accounts as unreliable and go with the video. What isn’t in dispute is that this was a ticketed event on University of Florida property, subject to the rules and restrictions commonly employed at such occasions. Kerry’s speech had run long and there had been repeated requests from school administration for questioners to be brief and to the point so as many questions and answers as possible could be had. This is also just common courtesy and respectfulness of the rights of other attendees at any lecture.

According to Clarissa Jessup she was next in line for the microphone when Meyer “stole the mike” and handed her his video camera to film what was coming. She also said she had previously drawn the attention of administrators by shouting at Kerry even though others were speaking, and they had called police to the mike. This is why police and administrators are just behind the microphone when Meyer starts in.

Now, chronologically from this YouTube posting:

00:10 - Microphone cut sign given by administrator. (Meyer had at that point been haranguing for nearly two minutes.)
00:15 – Meyer reacts by swinging an arm and refuses to step away from the microphone; a policewoman takes him in hand.
00:27 - Gently restrained, he pulls away and charges towards the stage.
00:29 - Woman cop draws her taser (right hand side of frame) while other officers try to get control of a resisting Meyer. All the officers are speaking.
00:44 - Now more cops are involved and Meyer is still resisting, large male cop picks him up and carries him to the back of the auditorium. Woman cop puts her taser away. At this point no one has pulled out handcuffs and in all likelihood had Meyer gone peacefully he would have been released without consequence.
00:51 - Meyer again breaks free and in doing so strikes the big black cop in the face with his elbow – Meyer is swarmed and taken to the floor.
01:16 - Meyer continues to resist being handcuffed and is warned by the woman cop kneeling at his head that he will be tasered unless he stops resisting
02:00 - Meyer continues to resist and is tasered by the female officer twice. He was not handcuffed at the time he was tasered.

Another view of Meyer striking cop here at 00:28. Also at the beginning of this tape many students can be heard applauding, not likely as has been suggested from some fascistic glee at authoritarian repression but rather much more likely in appreciation of the administration and police uniformly and equally enforcing the rules of civil behavior that apply to us all.

Meyer wasn’t tasered because he asked Kerry a challenging question; that is completely untrue. He was tasered because he resisted being handcuffed after striking a policeman in the face. Tips to avoid being tasered – don’t hit a cop, don’t resist arrest, and don’t keep struggling after you’ve been warned twice that continuing to do so will get you tasered.

So what we have here is a rude, incoherent, selfish man usurping the rights of others for his own benefit, refusing to comply with a reasonable request to stop his unacceptable behavior, resisting arrest, and assaulting an officer of the law in the performance of his duties. Not in my view a set of actions deserving of great sympathy.

The arm of progressive fellowship should be long and flexible, but it does not IMHO extend to include those who willfully break the law and violate the rights of others for their own self-aggrandizement. Not all speech is protected, and Meyer lost his constitutional protection when he rambled on excessively and thereby infringed upon the rights of many others. Not all actions are constitutionally protected, and regardless of circumstances neither resisting arrest nor assaulting police can be excused or tolerated in a civil society. To argue otherwise is to embrace lawlessness, disorder and chaos, and that kind of society benefits only the safely ensconced rich and elite – it does not benefit thee and me.

i have made exactly your arguments re: tasers about firearms for ... oh, 28 years or so.

I agree we don't have a police problem. Most of the cops on the street, like MOST of our uniformed servicemembers, are good folks.

I don't know that I trust their commanders, from the local PD all the way up to the putative C-in-C US, as far as I can throw any one of them up hill into the wind on a heavy-gravity planet.

But, with the caveat that we should strive as urgently to remove abusive officers (and more urgently to remove abusive / abuse-tolerant commanders!!) from the public safety services, I'm with you.

I have never been tasered, but I have been shocked with a "stun gun." I have also been shot with a nail gun. That hurt worse (and lasted longer) by a couple of orders of magnitude. I suspect a taser would be similar to a stun gun PROVIDED neither was I wet nor standing/falling in water during the experience.

I've been on the other side of that altercation, too. A week after I learned that the best way to go thru a plate glass window is NOT to be first, I discovered that the best way to control a 200-plus-pound subject high on angel dust is WITH HELP. Trained adult leadership, as always, would've been welcome in either situation; the first being a bar fight between me, an AF buddy of mine, and his bride and some Bandidos, and the second being an intervention starring three of us young AF cops well and truly overmatched against a loadmaster's wife, no such resource was handy either time ...

We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

Apparently I’ve managed to again upset Lambert. Don’t actually start out with that objective in mind, but here it is anyway and what the hell, in for a dime in for a dollar.

To recap, Lambert wrote:

“Kerry does not use his authority at the podium to control the situation”

And then I wrote:

“Blaming Kerry is completely ridiculous. He isn’t responsible for the behavior of the disruptive student, the UF administrators or the police. How rude to suggest that he is. Lambert, really, look at what you wrote – 'Kerry does not use his authority at the podium to control the situation…' Failure to be sufficiently authoritarian in support of criminal behavior, yessir, there’s a progressive indictment.“

And then Lambert wrote:

“Bringiton, if you must conflate 'authority' and 'authoritarian,' will you please do so where it does not distort my argument?”

So there we are. Let’s dissect, shall we, and see who has conflated what.

First of all, I’ve delivered well over a hundred formal podium lectures here and internationally, to groups from a few dozen to hundreds, and never, ever felt as though I had any authority over the audience at all, much less over the meeting administration or the local police. Why would I? An invited speaker is a guest, not a regent.

The primary authority is the meeting moderator, and as a speaker I can count on one hand the number of instances I’ve asked them for indulgence on matters of time, because it is rude to do so as well as a violation of the rights of others. Mostly my requests were denied, as they should have been. I’ve also moderated, and from that position I have had to occasionally cut off both questioners and speakers. There are ways to do it that are usually effective but the tenacious belligerence of Mr. Meyer would have been more than I could have managed, as was the case for everyone at this event except the police.

But, you might say, Kerry is a sitting United States Senator and bringiton is not, surely that political status gives him the authority Lambert requires. But no, actually, there is no provision in either the Constitution or in statutory law that gives Senators any authority whatsoever over any other citizen, much less over duly appointed administrators and law enforcement from another state. Kerry has no such authority, none whatsoever.

Further yet, Kerry did ask that Meyer be allowed to go on and that he would answer, but he was ignored by school administration and the police and rightly so. There is no reason whatsoever for any of them to defer to Kerry or any other elected official (other than perhaps in this case Florida’s Governor.) If Kerry supposed he had any authority in this setting, he was quickly disabused.

So Lambert castigates Kerry for not exerting authority he does not have and failing to impose his will over local officials and police. If there’s a distinction between the unilateral imposition of usurped authority and the practice of authoritarianism, I cannot discern it. If you care to, dear fellow, by all means enlighten me. If on the other hand you are satisfied that we both have had our say on the matter, let it go. I have far too much admiration for your prodigious abilities and political positions in general to get bogged down in petty differences. Far too much energy is wastefully expended on propriety by the left, a vigorous debate is a great strength but there are limits beyond which the process becomes negative.

And thanks for that, been there, what fun!

Once up to Calgary for the stampede I saw a cowboy thrown out of a bar fight though a plate glass window onto the wooden sidewalk. Everyone in the bar quit fighting and crowded over to see what had become of him. To his great credit the cowboy shook it off and staggered back inside through the swinging bar doors, blood dripping and fists cocked. I was seriously impressed.

"Thus we see that of 40,000,000 arrests with 2,002 related deaths, only two deaths were the result of taser homicide. Odds then of taser death during arrest are 20,000,000:1."

The cops taser everyone they arrest now?

But I still believe
And I will rise up with fists!!

"...2,002 related deaths, only two deaths were the result of taser homicide. Odds then of taser death during arrest are 20,000,000:1.”

at worst, they'd be 1 in 1,001, innit?

maths were never my best subject...

but this is the same sort of dsitortion that makes DC more 'dangerous' than Bagdhad...

Me? A Quick Study, But A Slow Learner

in this thread was, I'm sure, the risk of death from tasers in the hands of the police. To help answer that we can look to the cited study. The question I asked is "What are the odds of being willfully/negligently killed (a homicide) by a taser in the course of being arrested?" Another way of phrasing that is "If I am arrested what are the odds that I will die from a taser?" The answer is that - in this study - there were two taser homicides out of 40 million arrests, so the odds are very remote - 20 million to one. (The odds of dieing from any cause during arrest are 20,000:1) They are heightened considerably if the person being detained exhibits resistance or threatens but that shouldn't be surprising.

There are no available large studies that document taser usage and subsequent sequellae, but there are several underway and we should have the definitive answers in a couple of years or less. Meantime we can feel reasonably certain from this study and the Canadian literature review that the incidence is likely to be very, very low.

Won't do to compare the total number of deaths with the number of taser homicides, it just doesn't have any useful meaning.

Woody, if you see distortion here please point it out, I don't want to offer distortion nor do I want to be taken in by it - so, what distortion exactly?

You write:

First of all, I’ve delivered well over a hundred formal podium lectures here and internationally, to groups from a few dozen to hundreds, and never, ever felt as though I had any authority over the audience at all, much less over the meeting administration or the local police. Why would I? An invited speaker is a guest, not a regent.

Ah, the resume. I've done public speaking on countless occasions from the age of 15, in every imaginable format, including formal podium and university lectures, before groups both small and large, and in most types of venue, including Federal agencies and major corporations.

You've heard of the concept of ethos, I am sure? If as a speaker I don't achieve that, I'm not doing my job, and if I do achieve it, then I've got "authority," and not just because I'm speaking "as an authority." Surely, if this is true for me, it is all the more true for a Senator and a former Presidential candidate.

So, nice try, but alas, you are now piling a second conflation on top of the first one, by confusing personal, situational authority achieved at the podium and used to "cool the situation," with the legal authority that the police have.

I don't know about you, but if "on my watch" at the podium a member of my audience were tasered and dragged away screaming, I'd regard that as a personal failure, a failure in my duties to the audience, and even a failure for Meyer, obnoxious as he certainly was. In fact, I'd have a hard time sleeping at night, and I'd remember the incident for a long, long time.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

Well, certainly not if you're white, clean cut, and drive a nice car. And have relatives and friends on the beat. And say "yes, sir", and "no, sir" and keep your nose clean right proper.

If the wolf is not at my door, there is no wolf. As a matter of fact, wolves are mostly rodent and insect eaters, totally harmless, of bad reputation. If someone is ever attacked by a wolf, they must have provoked it.

[Now, where did I put that mylar hat? Oh, there- it was on my head all along! Silly of me.]

Incidently, more on similarly harmless microwave weapons here.

More on the micro UAV bots that were probably really only dragonflies and nothing to worry about even if they weren't here.

And the NSA eavesdropping? Why, what does an honest citizen with no police problem have to worry about? Absolutely nothing! Especially if they are a white Christian and/or a perfected jew.

Meanwhile, I'll continue my search for tinfoil alternatives that don't corrode easily. Why? Because once the Greenland sheet starts to melt, "this country" will become something altogether different, although as George Will says, global warming is no problem either, so when Miami and New Orleans and Manhattan are under 20 feet of water, I will be able to proudly say to my grandkids, "See? No global warming or police problem in this country! It's underwater!"

No Hell below us
Above us, only sky

A guy died after being tasered today in Vancouver.

In an alternate universe, he just won the lottery, I guess. (Give or take a few lightning strikes.)

But I still believe
And I will rise up with fists!!

and while, loosely speaking, "wolfless" I may be -- well behaved is not my long suit, and my truck, although I bust my tail to keep it clean and in good running condition, is 11 years old. I live in, according to our local PD, the highest-crime neighborhood in my city (thank you gentrification, but that's a different rant).

I have in my time met, in a professional setting where I was not the subject or a responding SP/LE, about a dozen police officers -- and about twice that many firefighters, thanks to my inability to lift my father when he fell and fainted on two different occasions.

To a person -- and more than once the responding officers were female -- I have found the officers themselves to be far more reasonable and far more personable than I found those "higher up the chain of command" to whom I was referred.

We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

But police problems are far down the list and mostly symptomatic of deeper societal problems. Bigotry, sociopathy, poverty, underemployment, family disintegration, destructive drugs, untreated mental illness, infantile lead poisoning, perinatal malnutrition, the list goes on and on and all of these lead to adults who can't adjust to the higher forms of civilized behaviors. Some become street criminals, some become business executives, some become President of the United States, and some become policemen.

Abusive behavior is always unacceptable, and especially so in those to whom we’ve entrusted authority. Abuse by police, such as this case that involves a taser along with other apparently excessive force should be condemned, but the problem is deeper and broader than policing per se and it makes no real sense to me to deflect focus from the underlying causes to the symptoms, nor does it make sense to me to blame an entire group of predominantly worthwhile and beneficial people for the sins of a few.

While I’m preaching, just exactly why wouldn’t a person make friends with the local police? I always do, along with the postman, the garbage man and the neighbors; doesn’t cost much and you just never know when it might come in handy.

Since we both have a public speaking background it might seem likely that we’d see the experience similarly but we are very different people and so we do not. I have always approached a speaking opportunity as just that and come to it as a well-prepared supplicant, hoping to educate the audience and perhaps persuade some of my position. My topics have always been technical and my approach rests predominantly on logos; such ethos as may come my way flows from the soundness of the content of my presentation and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have never in that setting felt anything remotely like what you are calling “authority” nor would I wish to, and am completely bewildered as to what you are describing, what it might feel like and what it might mean. Such authority as I have in my chosen field is the result of decades of careful experimentation, reason and thoughtfulness, and I sincerely hope not as an extension of someone’s perception of my character.

As to Mr. Meyer I’ve not had the experience of anyone in my audience striking a policeman in the face but I assure you I would not lose a bit of sleep over it or the aftermath. I did once have an audience member who was hauled off by security, he was drunk and groped somebody who didn’t appreciate it, but it was a big hall and I barely noticed. I slept just fine that night. I simply won’t accept any responsibility or blame whatsoever for the actions of others over whom I have no control. Neither should John Kerry be held responsible for the actions of those over whom he has no control, and I hold that it is wrong of you to assign him such blame.

Meyer made his own bed and he can sleep in it. If he finds it uncomfortable then hopefully he will remember for a long, long time the experience that follows hitting a policeman and not want to repeat it.

if you Google taser tinfoil.

Where are the crowds?

former cop, former student, and experienced meeting/training behind-the-scenes arranger, let me show off my perspective on the Kerry/student incident.

The kid was obstreperous (if that's not an underestimate).
Kerry was NOT the controlling authority in the room.

Resisting the will of the rest of the room as the kid did was the sort of behavior that gets you the most unwelcome attention of whoever's around to do crowd control.

Kelley b: have you never participated in a "shut up and listen" moment with a classmate, child, or fellow bus passenger?

We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

"Shut up and listen".

Now that's really funny.

Like I have any respect for anyone who says that to me. Like I would expect anyone I said that to would have any respect for me. I know, I have teenagers, and more importantly I even was a teenager once when people who talked like that were the norm, when Dick Nixon was the zeitgeist.

Just like nowadays, apparently.

If you think people really listen to you when you say that, you do live in a different bubble of the multiverse. Especially, you know, if you need a gun or a taser to ensure the attentiveness.

That's almost as rich as "There is no police problem in America". Just ask any one of the 10,000 people arrested here by Abu Gonzoles in his dry run for the police state he and Darth Cheneyburton have (and continue to have) the hots for. But when you ask those people to shut up and listen, be sure you're carrying one of those harmless, painless tasers, because they might not shut up. They might have something to tell you that might raise your consciousness a bit.

No Hell below us
Above us, only sky

because obviously you've never encountered a serious emergency, a drill sergeant trying to save you from screwing up and getting hurt, or a sports coach trying to explain to you why YOUR way is not the right way to complete a play, and you need to quit trying to justify doing it YOUR way instead of taking time to notice that YOUR way doesn't work.

Self-importance aside, there are times when the reason humans have ONE mouth and TWO ears become paramount and preeminently obvious.

I had a "shut up and listen" moment not too long ago, in fact. And yes, "shut up and listen" works. Of course, when you're trying to get a hysteric's attention, the next step is a slap.

We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

So clicked on your link, kb, because maybe there was something there worthwhile but no, just the old-news Operation Falcon being chewed on at a Wiki site. Boring, boring, but let’s recap for those unfamiliar.

There were three of these operations, with the stated focus of executing outstanding fugitive warrants. From the site you linked, the following:

Falcon I in Apr 2005 with 10,340 arrests;
Falcon II in Apr 2006 with 9,037 arrests;
Falcon III in Oct 2006 with 10,773 arrests.

Sounds impressive, cost about one million dollars each in funding for local, state, and Feds for a week's work, lots of co-ordination practice, lots of PR, lots of press, fair amount of controversy, apparently some generated fear. But….

At any given time there are about one million outstanding felony warrants in the United States. Most are attached to defendants that have left the charging jurisdiction, many across state lines. Even though the whereabouts of many of the suspects are known, they aren’t picked up due to limitations of money and manpower.

Local law enforcement where the suspects are living don’t usually seek them out because they have their own local bad guys (OK, and girls) to worry about and they don’t want to expend limited manpower and money on somebody else’s problem. Likewise, states don’t want to have to deal with the cost of extradition hearings, public defenders and jail housing for other state’s fugitives. Additionally, the home states often don’t have budget money for travel expense to go get and return their own fugitives once they’re captured. A sad reality.

By throwing in some money and additional manpower, plus temporary deputizing local law enforcement with federal powers, some of the wanted can be rounded up and the totals of each Falcon Op are about ten times the number of fugitives picked up in a typical week, but still only about one percent of the total number of warrants outstanding. What wasn’t recorded was the effect of the Falcon exercises on normal law enforcement practice. We simply don’t know how many new fugitives were able to escape jurisdiction while older fugitives were being rounded up. WaPo (yeah, yeah) has a decent writeup here.

Some observers consider these exercises to be principally PR stunts, with little or no real effect on the chronic problem of outstanding fugitive warrants. Kelly B and others consider them to be practice runs for some national police roundup of dissident citizens. If they are, they’re sadly inefficient (1% of target population). I suppose I’d be concerned if the US had been more successful gaining control over a benighted nation of 25 million people but with Iraq running into it’s fifth year with no end in sight I’m pretty sanguine about the ability of the federal government to militarily control a nation of 300 million.

Except for elections and thievery and fearmongering, the BushCo cabal has proven extraordinarily ineffective at every other endeavor. The roundup of Japanese Americans at the start of WWII was effective because the target subjects were easily identified by physiognomy. There was no concurrent roundup of German Americans in large part because it would have been impossible to identify them. How would BushCo identify US dissidents? Dirty hippies? Cut your hair and take a bath. Blog posts? Walk across the street and crash with the neighbors. Everybody who isn’t a registered Republican? You think 70% of the electorate rounded up and jailed? How many US citizens have actually been detained unconstitutionally by BushCo? Maybe a dozen or so, too many for sure and it needs to stop altogether but still, hardly a general roundup sort of effort or demonstrated capability.

These fools have had their run, they’ve come up short, the lies are being exposed and they’ve screwed up more than they can hide. Americans love winners but despise losers, and the BushCo cabal are proving to be losers. America is turning on them and they are on the run. What happens next is far more critical than what has happened, how we as a nation handle reversal of the last 20 year’s destructiveness is where we need to be focused now, not so much worrying about fears from the past. My opinion.

If you have something substantive to support claims of Federal mass detention capability, please share. This kind of speculation stuff does not impress me as worthy of any more discussion.

Oh, one other thing, kb, the police don’t actually care whether or not you respect them during an arrest, just that you comply. On a respect/disrespect basis they don’t give a damn, you are just part of the day’s work, and you can be assured that they will have weapons enough to ensure that compliance.

Fighting boring things just appeals to me, somehow.

Boring things like the creation of the apparatus of a police state are just the kind of thing I like to work against. Because, you know, it's not so boring at all. Some might even call it worthwhile.

When I fight authority, baby, authority always wins the battle. I never go up against physical weapons. I never confront the Man. But over the years I've managed to bring a few down. Hard. Legally. Peacefully.

It's not boring at all. It's quite satisfying. And the Man I enjoy bringing down the most is the Man who uses his penis surrogate to enforce his two dimensional self-image on the one he perceives weaker.

Strangely enough, one does not fight authority or authoritarians by engaging in their pissing contests.

Rather, one changes the rules of their game on them in a basic sort of way.

It's best done when they are totally unaware of what's happening in a game they don't even realize they're playing until it's all over.

So, to summarize your evaluation of Operation Falcon, because only 10,000 of the 30,000 people targeted were actually arrested it was inefficient?

No Hell below us
Above us, only sky