"Student outcry disappointing in Taser case" by David Korman The Ithacan Online Thursday, October 4, 2007
On Sept. 17, 2007, during a forum with John Kerry at the University of Florida at Gainesville, Fla., a student was forcibly restrained, Tasered, arrested and removed from the auditorium. Shortly after the incident, at least half a dozen videos shot by witnesses in the audience began to circulate on YouTube.
This incident occurred when Andrew Meyer asked John Kerry a question regarding the outcome of the 2004 presidential elections. For one reason or another, the police labeled him as hostile and an order was given to remove him from the hall.
In the context of the Tasing, what the student did to provoke the officers is irrelevant. The only situation that should have warranted the police’s response would have been if the student had waved a gun while he spoke. In the case of Meyer, he was carrying sunglasses and a book.
It is distressing that a colleague and fellow student at an American institution of higher learning was subject to such unjustified brutality by law enforcement officers simply for asking a question.Supposing that the actions of the Florida police were within state law regarding the use of force and the use of Tasers, it is questionable that these policies were necessary in this circumstance. We are not safer as a nation because a student asking a provocative question at a university can be wrestled to the ground and shocked with a Taser.
I have heard no national outcry. The relevance of the event was downplayed to an intolerable level in the media. This topic is more than relevant to us as college students, and it is not an isolated event. At UCLA last year, a student was handcuffed because he could not produce identification in a computer lab. He was then Tasered repeatedly after the cuffs were in place. We cannot allow this to continue.
The issues here are media censorship and government manipulation of national interests. We, as products of the system that supports these matters, must not let ourselves become an apathetic and ignorant people. It is our duty as a nation to work toward establishing a more coherent and stable society. Our concerns should be focused on the way Americans treat Americans. We should view our government as a tool that we control. Let us not be so desensitized to the suffering of our own people to the point that the blatant violation of a student’s right to ask a question is an event that we can tolerate and accept.
Forget that this is an issue of free speech. Forget that this is an issue of police brutality. Remember that the lack of an outcry against this injustice will be used to mark this sort of event as a precedent for times to come. Issues of this magnitude cannot be permitted to pique our concern only in the form of a short-lived YouTube phenomenon.
It is our duty as students to continue to question the actions of others so that the problems of today may be replaced by solutions for tomorrow. It has been my experience that whenever something is unclear at any given moment, a question of clarification is encouraged, if not mandated. It is the duty of students across America to pay attention when these events take place and to call on our representatives in government to fight for law enforcement policies that actually keep our students safe. The responsibility does not end when we are no longer enrolled in classes. As learning and adapting human beings we are forever students wherever we are. It is disrespectful to our future as a nation to allow this incident to pass us by unscathed."Printed from: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2007/041007_b_outcry.htm
