Good Ole UCPD
Video . Story here. Another example of those with a modicum of authority taking it to the extreme, starting with the rent-a-cops that run around checking IDs. And believe me, the UCPD at UCLA do have a serious history of excessive use of force. Westwood is no Berkeley, they don't get to find dead bodies in sororities every other day. They have to take out all the pent up energy at the campus library.
Labels: Rabid Conservatives, Rabid Liberals
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 11:51 AM
43 Comments:
It doesn't seem like the video tells enough of the story to draw hard and fast conclusions. Specifically, I wonder how the encounter began. It would be hard to imagine continued tasering being justified, but I can undertand why someone without ID refusing to leave the library at 11:30 pm could make the cops nervous in the first place.
Yeah just ask the homeless guy they shot at 2 am for sleeping in the student government building.
Wasnt that in the cpu lab just off the main entrance? They really need to up the physical reqs of the officers, that's only a 100 foot drag for three cops.
"He wasn't cooperative; he wouldn't identify himself. He resisted the officers,"
Nice police logic. Conclusion, evidence, conclusion. So resistance is remaining silent?
Read the story for a little more detail. The guy basically told off some poor CSO because he didn't feel like showing his ID.
Listening to him, he sounds like a real pyscho / a**hole. "This is your Patriot act." "Here's your justice at work." In response to "Stand up.": "F*ck you."
Some really annoying "civil rights" oriented people there only making the situation worse by screaming at the cops. "This is an abuse of your authority." "What's wrong with you people?"
Obviously the cops could have handled it better. They should have told him was under arrest as soon as he refused to comply so that he understood they weren't just going to let him leave on his own. Also, even though the first few shocks seemed to be anti-resistance, the later ones seemed to be pain-compliance.
Not that pain compliance is always illegitimate, but it seemed they had enough man power to carry him out in this case.
Indeed, and here I was thinking only Berkeley students were capable of floating on a bed of their own self-righteous liberal energy.
Then again, "Stand up or I'll taser you" seems like a rather clear-cut excessive use of force. Wasn't the lesson of all those sit-ins in Sproul in the 60s that when you go limp, the cops can't beat the shit out of you but have to carry you away? This sounds like the making of a great 1983 suit!!!
I thought it'd be an interesting question of whether the police officers would be entitled to qualified immmunity, but apparently the people at Taser beat me to the punch: http://www.taser.com/documents/memorandumoflaw.doc .
I'm sorry, but the video doesn't really clear much up. Far from complying, the guy acted like an asshole and didn't follow the officer's *crystal clear* orders. Although tasing the kid was probably unnecessary to ensure the officer's safety (there were multiple officers there), I don't think it is a clear-cut example of excessive force. You could make the argument that his refusal to calm down and comply with the officer’s orders after being tased was reason enough to give him a second dose to subdue him since the first dose obviously didn’t work.
Awesome. This is why it's a good idea to train cops not to make stupid threats and turn everything into a pissing match. If it's a big deal that the guy leave when you say, and he doesn't do it, arrest him. If you want to give him a warning, then tell him he's about to be arrested.
Even if they're dumb and cocky, well-trained cops don't use threats of force to get people to follow orders. Why? Because sometimes people don't follow the order and then what? No good outcome. Either look like a moron for making stupid threats ("Uh, okay, I won't actually tazer you, but please leave anyway") or look like an asshole on a power trip & get the smack down yourself when the video gets out. So here's the real question: what consequence will convince the cops to train their people not to do that shit?
These comments do a good job of demonstrating that there are fascists at Boalt. Thanks for clearing that up guys! I'm sure you fascists don't care that a Taser can actually kill a person. If they don't obey a CSO order then they had it coming, even if "it" is a fatal heart attack caused by a Taser. I can't wait until they start using their "less lethal" weapons on undergrads studying at Boalt. Those undergrads are such a bother and I don't care if they live or die. The only think I care about is whether the police are feared and it would be great if they started Tasering people to remind them we live in a police state, even in Berkeley.
So acting like an asshole now justifies the use of a taser? If people would stop being so paranoid (thanks to Big Brother's War on Terror) maybe they'd stop and realize that refusing to show ID or even being disruptive isn't reason to go apeshit like these police did.
Are there any protests of this organized on the Berkeley campus?
8:16, shouldn't you be on Daily Kos or something right now, receiving your marching orders? And come on -- I'm sure there's a HITLER analogy to be found somewhere! Come on, you can do it, that's it, baby steps -- boom, HITLER.
if you are going to call someone a fascist could you at least not post anonymously? There are other slightly more intelligent ways to say you disagree.
I would love to see someone call me a fascist to my face in the hall, if they can do it here.
Seriously guys, have you seen the video? A nut screaming at cops and refusing to follow an instruction. A Taser may not be totally safe, but don't you think the cops would rather have him walk out?
He asked for it pretty bad, IMO.
"I'm going to tase you again unless you move"
"@%@$ you i'm not getting up!"
"I'm going to tase you again unless you get up"
"NO!!!"
ZAP.
I was explaining to a friend of mine that I don't think the guy can win a 1983 suit, but now I'm not so sure. After a cursury review, here's what I understand of the legal standard and I'd appreciate any corrections here.
To win, Plaintiff must establish that a Constitutional right was violated and that the right was clearly established at the time the incident took place such that a reasonable officer in that situation would have known he was acting illegally. The first requirement is for the claim itself, and the second is to defeat an officer's qualified immunity.
You can establish excessive force under an objectively reasonable standard based on the "facts and circumstances of each particular case, including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight." Graham v. O'Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989).
So severity of the crime? P's favor. Safety? Probably P's favor but not to clear, though he was handcuffed. Resisting or evading? Tossup, but by the 4th taser this is clearly in P's favor. And again, the key is, "stand up or I'll taser you." That's where the cop gets into trouble. He's not saying "drop the knife or I'll taser you" he's asking someone who's been tasered 2 or 3 times to stand up. So, I think the claim is there.
To get qualified immunity, the plaintiff's lawyer has to show that the case law, indistinguishably, shows that getting tasered when you go limp is a violation of a constitutional right. I couldn't find anything specifically on tasor, but in Headwaters Forest Defense v. County of Humboldt, 276 F.3d. 1125 (9th Cir. 2002), the court found a clearly established use of excessive force when the Eureka P.D. pepper sprayed peaceful protestors who were not resisting or threatening physical harm to the officers. Id. at 1130. Eureka P.D. defined active resistence as when a "subject is attempting to interfere with the officer's actions by inflicting pain or physical injury to the officer without the use of a weapon or object."
So, I think qualified immunity will be a close battle. Butt see Beaver v. City of Federal Way, 2006 WL 3203729 (W.D. Wash. 2006) (denying summary judgment on qualified immunity because there is a genuine issue of fact as to the actions and motives of officers and as to the law on the use of taser).
This is an incredibly long way of saying: The Taser Co's memo is highly misleading. People need to cool down no matter how they feel. While watching the video, I'm sorry, my initial reaction wasn't "oh that guy has it coming." If a cop tells me to stand up or he's going to taser, I'd stand up if I could. Or I'd say I can't...if I could speak that is. That doesn't mean the officer can use whatever means he wants to get me to stand up. I agree with the poster above, the officers are the ones who are trained and they need to fall back on that training instead of getting into a pissing contest. See, BLF this year.
To be clear, I agree with 8:09.
And I disagree with co-blogger McWho. As a 1L, I'll chalk this up to natural emotional outburst ("but but how can the Peavyhouses (sp?) not get the cost of cleanup?") But disobeying a police command does not mean they can use force against you. Only if you actively resist. For all I know Rodney King insulted Lawrence Powell's mom, that doesn't mean he can now beat the shit out of him. That's not why we give them a near monopoly on the use of force. And believe me, I'm not some yuppie screaming police brutality at every corner. Even with a very deferential standard towards the officers, I think this guy has a pretty good claim that will go past summary judgment.
As a UCLA Law alum, I find this really disturbing. I'm pretty sure that someone who has been tased would do anything within their power not to be tased again. If the guy could have gotten up and walked out after he'd been tased, he WOULD have. So he freaked out, so he overreacted, so he should have had his Bruincard, so he should have left quietly and promptly...sure. So he was annoying, stupid, offensive, disruptive, and immature. But the last time I checked, those were not activities that would justify using a taser. If the cops were most concerned about preventing disruption in the library by ensuring that only UCLA students were there, they failed miserably by tasing him and contributing to a huge dramatic scene.
I think the student was pretty stupid in not leaving, and most of the students who were standing around yelling at the cops should not have wasted their time because it was futile...but the fact remains that the cops' behavior was basically inexcusable. If someone asks for your badge number, you don't threaten to tase them. If a student won't leave, and shows no threat of violence, but is just a loud-mouthed college kid, you don't tase him. Pretty simple common sense. I'm glad that someone caught that on videotape, because who knows how UCLA would have spun it.
I agree with co-blogger Armen that I wasn't basing my conclusion on legal grounds. In fact, I'm sure he DOES have a 1983 claim. I also agree that police getting into a pissing match (as happpened here AND BLF) is a bad thing to let happen.
I was merely pointing out in the slightly less Boalt-Like method that this guy was a retard. He didn't have his ID. He should have left. What does he do? He tries to make a political statement, and draw cops out in order to anger the community. Well it worked like a charm, now the (most likely spoiled brat) is going to be famous for helping to stop police brutality.
I'm not sure if that is beneficial or not. It may be useful for the police to learn their lesson now rather than on a true victim, but either way, I think the kid asked for it.
If you think of entrapment, I think that this is a good show of "reverse-entrapment". Before you argue it, I realize that they were not "forced" into tasering him, and so it is not entrapment. This is not a discussion of the literal sense of the term, or even the legal one. Only a moral application. Of course it is no excuse, and yes, the police used too much force. I just think the kid deserves no sympathy. Admonish the officers? Absolutely.
Another wrinkle that will likely come up on this case is a Heck bar. Since the guy will most likely be convicted (by plea or otherwise) of resisting arrest, according to Smith v. City of Hemet, 394 F.3d 689 (9th Cir. 2005), the issue will be whether the acts of excessive force occured after the resisting of arrest upon which the conviction is made.
What Smith says is that there need to be facts in the plea agreement / allocution to establish that he is pleaing guilty for pretty much every act of resistance or that the police officers can argue that the acts of resistance were part of one continuous course of events. (Rather than Smith's "investigative" phase and "arrest" phase).
Since in this case the police probably told the guy to leave, and he refused before the tasering began, the allocution will need to be pretty specific to include all such acts of resistance to avoid Smith's analysis of "investigative phase" v. "arrest phase."
10:45 - Huh? I don't do research to read blog comments. A little background might be nice.
McWho - what happened at BLF? (I think that at the time I was in the library dodging tazers and reading Smith v. City of Hemet, 394 F.3d 689 (9th Cir. 2005).
Anyone going to post about the BBB censorship complaints?
First, let me say that I agree with the dropping of the F-bomb on people who would endorse such abuse (it's not that big of a deal, every society has its fascists). Second, I'd like to point out that some people haven't read the facts as they have been described in the articles. The guy was leaving and got tasered because he told the cop to let go of his arm. Third, there is no way this guy gets convicted of anything. Screaming is justified after being tasered. And how are you supposed to stand up quickly when you've just been incapacitated with a taser (even if they did use the lower setting). Most importantly, there is no way a jury will condone this type of abuse when it is on video. Fourth, these cops will be lucky to keep their jobs and the police chief may be in trouble as well. Fifth, this guy will likely get enough in settlement to pay for three years at Boalt (or even Stanford).
Finally, and most importantly since this is Boalt, let's make it into a crim law issue-spotter. Keep in mind that the article references a study showing 148 people have been killed by tasers since 1999.
1. If one of this guy's friends or family members hit the cop with the taser in the head with a brick and killed him to prevent him from tasering the kid, could she get off under a defense of defense of others?
2. What if this third person grabbed the cop's taser and tasered the cop or if she pepper-sprayed the cop to incapcitate him?
3. Does it change things if the victim had a potentially fatal heart condition that could have been set off by the taser? What if he told the cops about the heart condition between the first and second tasering and the intervention from the third party came before the cop could shock him a third time? What if the cops had prior personal knowledge of the condition? Analyze each of the scenarios in this one in the context of both lethal force (brick to head) and less lethal, equivalent force (taser or pepper spray).
Head fascist here. I thought the facts from this LA Times article make the issue more complicated because the kid admitted that he did not comply with the officers requests & then actively tried to resist their efforts to get him out. No offense, but you don't get to tell an officer what to do (e.g. don't touch me) and then ignore their orders because they didn't listen to you. This kid was an asshole and got what he deserved. How are the officers supposed to know this kid isn’t a threat when he is acting so crazy in response to something as simple as providing ID or leaving the building?
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ucla17nov17,0,3038756.story?track=mostviewed-storylevel
Attorney Stephen Yagman said he plans to file a federal civil rights lawsuit accusing the UCLA police of "brutal excessive force," as well as false arrest. The lawyer also provided the first public account of the Tuesday night incident at UCLA's Powell Library from the student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a 23-year-old senior.
He said that Tabatabainejad, when asked for his ID after 11 p.m. Tuesday, declined because he thought he was being singled out because of his Middle Eastern appearance. Yagman said Tabatabainejad is of Iranian descent but is a U.S.-born resident of Los Angeles.
The lawyer said Tabatabainejad eventually decided to leave the library but when an officer refused the student's request to take his hand off him, the student fell limp to the floor, again to avoid participating in what he considered a case of racial profiling. After police started firing the Taser, Tabatabainejad tried to "get the beating, the use of brutal force, to stop by shouting and causing people to watch. Generally, police don't want to do their dirties in front of a lot of witnesses."
11:48:
Who in this thread has supported the cops? The "F-Bomb" got dropped against someone who said both sides likely did things wrong. Also, look up the definition of fascist before talking about it, it implies the belief in a autocracy or dictatorship. Saying that cops should have done something different, but that guy was also doing things stupid does not imply a belief in unlimited control of government by one person.
Secondly, telling the cop to take his arm off of him was likely resisting under California law. In fact, under California law, simply refusing to obey a lawful order of a police officer (i.e. leave the library) is resisting. Read the Smith case cited above and the statute. Cal. Penal Code. 148.: "Every person who willfully resists, delays, or obstructs any public officer, peace officer ... in the discharge or attempt to discharge any duty of his or her office or employment ... shall be punished."
Even if "screaming is justified after being tased", telling the cops to "F*ck off" aftering they tell you to stand up is still resisting arrest. You also know little about how a Taser works, as when it is used in "drive stun" mode, as it is here, it is only a pain compliance tool and has no incapacitating effects.
Lastly, your "fact patterns" are just insane. Try to remember this through law school: your own moral compass is not the same thing as the law, because that would be fascism.
Hey Fascists!
No, not you. The REAL fascists. I hope your fascist ideology comes back and makes you suffer as you would have others suffer. And you're goddamn right I'm not going to put my name on this. You're FASCISTS! If I were criticizing someone from the ACLU, maybe I'd trust him to understand the difference between political speech and a threat. But not when I'm criticizing a FASCIST, you fascist. You fascists really don't get it, do you?
By the way, would one of you fascists please tell me what the heck a Heck bar is? I'd ask one of you soft Berkeley hippie radicals, but you just aren't as trustworthy when it comes to spoonfeeding me legal doctrine. Well, fascists? How about it?
A fascist can also be someone who believes constituted authority (such as the institution of the police) should always be followed and is above critique. It is not unreasonable to say people who think this person "got what he deserved" fall in this category. Using a potentially fatal weapon five times against someone because he wouldn't show his ID card is pretty extreme (let's not forget he appeared to be a student and actually was a student). If you won't criticize cops for these actions, it is unlikely you would criticize them for anything. Sounds kind of fascist to me.
I do like the issue-spotter. Interesting issues.
And I think the kid was an Islamo-Fascist as per the recent usage of the term by the Bush Administration. Now knock off the nonsense.
At BLF there was a "minor incident" involving wine bottles falling eight stories and hitting personal police vehicles. Needless to say, this concluded the evening fairly quickly.
12:26 -
See Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994).
Basically, you can't succede on a 42 USC 1983 action (for civil rights violations by state actors) if success on the 1983 action would necessarily imply the invalidity of a state court criminal conviction. Examples are the most useful: you can't allege that police destroyed evidence that would have proved your innocense in a 1983 action. California's resisting statute is special because, unlike other states statutes, you are only guilty if the arrest is lawful. An arrest is not considered lawful if excessive force is used. So Smith was resolving some of the technical issues related to that.
A few tangential observations.
1. I'm astounded by the uproar over Tasers. Yes, they appear to be imperfect. But what would happen if you took them away? Cops would be left with guns and nightsticks. Call me crazy, but I'd rather be tazed than hit with a nightstick. Just think about the potential for death and permanent injury that come from beating someone into submission versus shocking them into submission.
2. People are far too loose with the F-bomb. If our worst fear is that the police may use excessive but non-lethal force on us when we do everything in our power to piss them off - we do not live under a fascist regime. Fascists don't use Tasers; they use guns. And they definitely don't let you file 1983 suits. Save the word "fascism" for situations that actually merit the word.
3. Better question: why do we need a cop at the front desk of any of these libraries? Why not move the school over to a magnetic stripe reader on the doors of Boalt? Swipe your card, you get access, all hours of the day and night. No card, all the doors are locked. I'm shocked that any person can wander any hall of Boalt *but* the library at any time of day or night.
This technology is so cheap and so useful, I can't believe the school has not installed it. Every workplace has something similar. I don't know about other people, but my undergrad had it on all the buildings too. Most useful, it creates an access log, so when laptops go missing, we at least know where to start looking.
Imagine this incident with magnetic stripe technology. Kid arrives at library. Hmm. No card, can't unlock the door. Goes home, gets card, gets in library. The end.
And with that, I'm making some tea. And looking forward to being called out as the liberty-killing police-state advocate.
Hey Tom - you sound pretty reasonable, but I think you've posed a false dilemma there.
First off, I think the cops with tazers usually also have some sort of stick they can beat people with as well - if not a nightstick then one of those expandable things they smack people with.
Second, even if there is a tradeoff between tazers and knightsticks, we still don't have to choose between (1) follow orders or get beaten with knightsticks and (2) follow orders or get tazed. There is also that third option that he cops just arrest the person who isn't following orders, using only the force necessary to safely complete the arrest.
Third, I like the technology solution. It would probably help. But if there is no one there to supervise the entrance there are still going to be people who just wait for someone with a card to open the door and walk on in. Maybe if there were a video camera and a sign saying that those who enter without a card will be prosecuted that would help too, but some people will always slip through.
I don't think you're a liberty-killing police-state advocate, by the way. And probably not a fascist either, but that's always harder to pin down. Of course, I just advocated that big brother check us out on video whenever we head to the library, so maybe you should get a second opinion.
Poor kid. First he gets tazed by the police. Then he gets Yagman as an attorney. For god sakes, the guy is under federal indictment. http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/cac/pr2006/083.html
For an example of Yagman's incompetence see Hart v. Parks, 450 F.3d 1059 (9th Cir. 2006) ("Opening Briefs in each of these two appeals include more than 25 pages of "facts," which unfortunately include speculation, innuendo, and argument mixed with actual facts. We remind counsel that the "fact" section of a brief is for facts; argument should be reserved for the argument section of the brief. Compare Fed. R. App. Pro. 28(a)(7) (statement of facts) with Fed. R. App. Pro. 28(a)(9) (argument). The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure's requirement of separate sections for facts and argument is mandatory, not suggestive.")
See also Standing Committee v. Yagman, 55 F.3d 1430 (9th Cir. 1995) (trying to get judge disqualified by claiming he was an anti-semite, almost got barred from practicing for 2 years).
12:50, good job on the summary of Yagman. I put my face in my hands when I first read that Yagman is representing this guy. He's second only to Leo Terrel in absolute inability to argue the law.
This kid's attorney doesn't even need to be able to argue the law. He has the facts. That video makes this a slam dunk. An attorney would have to go pretty far to mess this one up.
First, for credibility, you mom is a F*.
Second, it is shocking to me that people at this school, or anywhere, could watch this video and not be morally outraged.
Third, Boalt is a public law school. I hope it keeps its doors open to anyone. I'm pretty sure anyone can use the library at anytime, except the undergrads and essentially homeless people (All you have to do is show ID, the ID need not be a Berkeley ID -- correct me if I'm wrong). There are many practical reasons to limit access to the law school library and building itself. There are as many counterarguments. Hash it out if you must.
Here’s my two cents: All I know is that when I was at a conference at Harvard Law and asked a current student, who I'll call Tool, if I could use the library, he said, “probably not.” I asked him, “why not?” Tool said, “it isn't open to the public.” I asked, “why?” Tool seemed shocked I'd ask the question and then condescendingly told me something to the effect of the school needed to take precautions against terrorist attacks. At that moment I was glad I had chosen to receive my legal education at Boalt Hall. Tool also told me he would be clerking on the Second Circuit. So prestigious, so smart, so sheltered, so arrogant, Tool. I hope that Boalt Hall will keep its doors open to the people of California and the world, both literally and figuratively. Boalt Hall should continue to stay in the business of education public spirited lawyers and leaders, but not Tools.
5:52, the two need not be mutually exclusive. Powell library at UCLA (the library in question) is also a public library. But during the afterhours they require student ID. One need not be a tool to suggest that Boalt can have public hours and hours only for students. Why should I find someone from CLR to get a key to the building late at night? I'm also willing to ask the people who had their laptops stolen last year how they feel about unfettered access to the library.
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I like Tom's idea. Though no system is infallible, a magnetic card with a log is a better means of security than the half-asleep undergrad in khaki + the ID checker who's almost never there (or just waives you through).
As a victim of laptop theft last year, though, I would actually be more concerned with such a system creating a false sense of security. My laptop was stolen during public hours, whilst I had foolishly left it unattended to take a leak. Despite multiple warnings from the law school, I see this behavior repeated all the time. The slightly more annoying variant is when people ask a total stranger (often me) to watch their $1500 machine and a $500 stack of books while they disappear to make a 20-minute phone call. Why do strangers trust me? It makes me wish I were less trustworthy. I guess most of us are too dumb or naive to learn from others' mistakes. I was.
To the 5:52 F-bomb dropper who quipped "it is shocking to me that people at this school, or anywhere, could watch this video and not be morally outraged." It is a tenet of fascist societies to impose a single worldview on all citizens, so that the same incident must either cause moral outrage among all or some other uniform response--whatever the State/Party/Leader decrees is right. Societies such as ours value pluralism and can "agree to disagree" on civilized terms, as (mainly) occurs on this blog.
Finally, because someone finds the police may have been justified in their use of force here does not imply that the same person would agree with any use of force. What if the police had shot the guy on the spot? I doubt we would be hearing "well, he didn't have his ID...", but who knows, maybe there are actually some closet fascists among us.
How hard do you think the police would have had to hit the guy with a nightstick to make him scream like that?
Would hitting him that hard be okay because he had not stood up?
Tomo,
Given the facts that have come out above, I don't know how you can be so pro-Taser. First, it is not the case that Tasers are safer than nightsticks. I would rather take a few whacks from the nightstick (not to the head, mind you) than take my chances that the wiring in my chest is good enough that a Taser wouldn't cause a heart attack. Second, the Taser doesn't leave a mark in the same way that a nightstick or bullet does. As we can see in the video, this makes cops feel they can Taser people punitively and then deny it later, as they no doubt would have in this case had it not been captured on video.
In answer to your question, if we took Tasers away we would likely have less people being killed by police (148 deaths is a lot) and less police abuse (cops would be more hesitant to hit someone those last four or five times if they knew it would leave a mark).
On a related note, does anyone remember when Bernie Kerik was nominated to be secretary of Homeland Security? The nomination was withdrawn after about a billion scandals came out. One was that Kerik, who had been on the board of Taser, dumped a bunch of Taser stock just before an Amnesty International study on the dangerousness of Tasers came out. Even the market knows Tasers are bad, something that should convince the most conservative of law and economics ideologues.
To Anonymous @ 2:58 PM, I don't think you got 5:52's joke. You also don't seem to understand the difference between saying "I can't believe some people aren't outraged by this video" and "all who disagree with me should be tortured or excluded from society until the agree with me." Ironically--or perhaps Orwellianly--you statement that "if you criticize my view, you are a totalitarian fascist ultra-liberal" is actually kind of fascist. 5:52's statement was not.
I hope this helps.
Au contraire! I got the joke; my response contained such subtle irony that you missed it entirely, 6:57.
My response did not, however, contain what you quote me as saying. I called nobody a fascist. You have an active imagination indeed. I instead pointed out that inability to comprehend views alien to your own is but an attribute of fascist thinking.
I can illustrate with another bomb alluded to earlier: the H-bomb. One can point out that Hitler was a big fan of Mother's Day. This appears to taint the fan of Mother's Day with an unpleasant association. However, this is merely rhetorical. Everyone knows that just because you like Mother's Day does not mean you are a fan of Hitler.
I used the rhetorical device, which you noticed. However, I left the conclusion wide open, and you were good enough to complete it for me. Unfortunately, you got it wrong.
As a UCLA alum, I have to say I'm with the cops on this one. I also look Middle Eastern, and I've been asked to present my ID at the library plenty of times . . . along with all the white guys in there too.
For this student to play the victim and suggest he was "singled out" for an ID check because of his race is simply idiotic. Anyone who has attended UCLA and been in a library there knows that they ask EVERYONE they run into past a certain time in the evening to present their ID. The one time I forgot it, the CSO doing the checking politely asked me to leave, and I left, along with 2 other white girls. Was I annoyed? Sure. Did I start cussing and screaming and acting belligerent? Nope - and neither did my friends.
I'm pretty sure a white guy would have gotten the same treatment if he'd started cussing out the cops, and acted as belligerent and uncooperative as this guy did.
Here's another reason I like the UCLA cops - they actually do a really good job of keeping the campus safe. In 4 years at UCLA, I never had a single person aggressively follow me, spit in my face, and/or scream obscenities to me as I walked home late in the evening. I've already lost track of how many times this has happened to me at Berkeley - and just about every other female student here seems to have had a similar experience. The UCLA cops aggressively police the campus - and I really appreciate them for it.
Last but not least, to suggest that they are fascists or anything else along those lines is amazingly naive. I've always known a lot of my classmates here at Boalt are from amazingly sheltered backgrounds, but this proves it for sure. Take a trip to the Middle East - say Iran or Saudi Arabia, or even Kuwait. I think you'll find that the type of policing they do over there represents a far closer version of "fascist cops" than anything you'll find at UCLA.
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