Jason Kerwin
Stanford Daily
Friday, November 17, 2006

I’m writing in response to a YouTube video of police officers tasering a UCLA student being passed around on campus email lists. As with all such videos, it’s impossible to know all the facts. What I do know is that there is no way you can watch this video without becoming angry and horrified.

A student confronted by police for not having his student ID card in the library is grabbed and tasered as he attempts to leave the building. The police repeatedly order him to stand up. He tells them that he can’t. They taser him again. He screams. This goes on several times, as the police appear to drag him down the hall. Not once do I see the student offer any resistance beyond failing to stand. A crowd of other students gathers, begging the police to stop using the taser. The student says he has a medical condition, and the cops taser him repeatedly after he makes that statement. This process continues, with the student shouting about “abuse of power.” Other students from the crowd demand the police officers’ badge numbers, but are refused. After one student asks for badge numbers, an officer threatens the student will “get tased too.”

This story has all of the worst elements of an abuse of authority and should disturb anyone who is concerned with civil rights. The student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, was singled out for a violation of a rule that bans students from the library after 11 p.m. unless they have a university ID card — a rule that has very little public safety merit. Even if you believe he was resisting arrest — something that’s hard to justify based on the video — there is no doubt that more harm and disorder were caused by taking him into custody than could have been caused by this violation. Moreover, it’s obvious from his name and appearance that Mostafa is a minority. My assumption on learning his name was that he was a Muslim, and the police officers probably thought so as well. The force used was incredibly disproportionate to the threat and situation, and is inappropriate on every level. Why use a taser, which involves a highly audible electrical shock and induces screaming, in a silent library? Finally, and most disturbingly, the officers ignored the requests for mercy by the surrounding students and even threatened them with violence.

I have to admit that I didn’t know too much about tasers before tonight, but I know a little more now. I know that a 2001 study in the Lancet Medical Journal showed that tasering can leave the victim immobilized for five to 15 minutes, so in all likelihood Mostafa really couldn’t stand up. I know that Amnesty International wants tasers banned except in deadly force situations because 148 people have been killed by tasering in the United States and Canada since 1999. I have seen the way tasering turned what should have been a calm and even friendly confrontation over a student who did almost nothing wrong into a full scale civil disturbance. The relevant authorities have promised to perform an inquiry, and I hope that the officers responsible get exactly the punishment they deserve. I would find it hard to believe that what they did was necessary.

Here at Stanford, we’re pretty lucky. I like our campus police. But what I saw tonight has left me extremely disturbed and fearful that something like that could happen on our campus. The rule that Mostafa broke was trivial and meaningless — it’s the kind of rule Stanford students break as a matter of course, whether we’re biking in the Quad or skateboarding anywhere on campus (both punishable by fine). I have seen altercations with the police over similarly trivial rules escalate before, and I thought things were generally handled quite well. All I want is a simple assurance: I want a pledge from the Stanford University Department of Public Safety that they will not use tasers unless the suspect is a violent threat. I trust you guys. We all trust you. Please validate that trust when you’re enforcing the rules.