Here's your Patriot Act, here's your f&!$ing abuse of power

This video was taken on a camera phone by a student of UCLA. It shows a violent and unprovoked assault on another student by the campus police whose "crime" was simply to fail to show ID when requested.



The student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, 23, was punished by being tazed several times, as police did a routine check of student IDs at Angeles Powell Library computer lab around 11pm.

UCLA Police Department spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein stated that this check was a "long-standing library policy to ensure the safety of students during the late-night hours". She went on to say that police tried to escort Tabatabainejad out of the library after he refused to provide identification and claims that Tabatabainejad instead encouraged others at the library to join his resistance. When a crowd began to gather around them, police used the stun gun on him. On the video Tabatabainejad can be heard to "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your f&!$ing abuse of power" as he struggled with the officers. At this stage a crowd of 50 or 60 students had gathered and were shouting at the officers to stop and demanding their names and badge numbers.

UCLA graduate David Remesnitsky of Los Angeles, who witnessed the incident, described it as "beyond grotesque". Remesnitsky added that "By the end they took him over the stairs, lifted him up and tazered him on his rear end. It seemed like it was inappropriately placed. The tasering was so unnecessary and they just kept doing it". The campus police, have, in turn, confirmed that Tabatabainejad was stunned multiple times. As one of the crowd who had gathered, Remesnitsky said that officers told him to leave or he too would be tazered.

Tabatabainejad, who is a fourth-year Middle Eastern and North African studies and philosophy student, believes that he was the only one present who was asked to show ID and that this was clearly an incident of racial profiling.

Even if the UCLA campus police had used the taser once at this incident, it would have been inappropriate given the level of threat they faced. Their continued use of the tazer is an abhorrent and disgusting abuse of their power. If the suggestion that they used the taser on the student after he was handcuffed turns out to be true, then it constitutes aggravated assault.

An article in the Lancet Medical Journal in 2001 reported that a charge from a taser of three to five seconds can result in immobilisation for between five and fifteen minutes, yet the clueless power-crazed neanderthals repeatedly shout at the student to "stand up" after administering their own form of summary justice. What is notable is not only the excessive force used, but that Tabatabainejad was on his way out of the library when approached by the goons. Also noteworthy is that a another student, a bystander, was threatened with the tazer for simply demanding the badge number of the officer - a request which is well within his rights.

This is the third incident in as many weeks where police in the LA area are suspected of serious abuse of power, the first resulting from a video showing a police officer repeatedly hitting a suspect in the face while pinning him to the ground with his knee on the neck. A subsequent video showed a Los Angeles Police Department officer directing pepper spray into the face of a handcuffed suspect as he sat in the back of a patrol car.

If these UCPD rent-a-sadist cops are found to be guilty of an abuse of power, then they should be subject to summary dismissal without benefits. Perhaps a spell on food stamps will teach those who have been handed power that they abuse it at their peril. Mostafa Tabatabainejad will be filing a lawsuit against the UCPD, and I sincerely hope that they are forced to pay dearly for this felony.

It used to be said that only those who break the law should fear the police. Now it is clear that even law-abiding citizens also have reason to fear. This should never be allowed to be the case - the police, after all, are public servants who paypackets are furnished from the pockets of taxpayers. When the role of the police clearly shifts from being to "protect and serve" to one where they routinely "attack and abuse", then this should be a matter of extreme concern to everyone.