An incident late Tuesday night in which a UCLA student was stunned at least four times with a Taser has left the UCLA community questioning whether the university police officers’ use of force was an appropriate response to the situation.

Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a UCLA student, was repeatedly stunned with a Taser and then taken into custody when he did not exit the CLICC Lab in Powell Library in a timely manner. Community Service Officers had asked Tabatabainejad to leave after he failed to produce his BruinCard during a random check at around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Honestly, I don’t even know what to say about it. It’s fucking ridiculous. And I absolutely believe that we’ll continue to see more and more of these kinds of abuses of power so long as we, as a country, continue to move in a direction where civil rights are treated as a joke and the notion we shouldn’t torture people is considered quaint. Wrapped up within all that is the culture of fear and suspicion generated specifically so our government can convince us to give away our rights and freedoms. This incident is a direct result of the obsession with security and associated de facto distrust of our fellow citizens that has become the American norm. We’re becoming crazy and rash and aggressive because of our fears, and such behavior is sanctioned all the way to the top of this nation’s leadership.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

According the University of California Police Department:

The Hiring, Training and Backgrounds Unit worked to recruit and qualify candidates for several police and dispatch positions. We have enhanced the roll-call training program by interfacing it with the California P.O.S.T.’s police training DVD series. We are also in the beginning phases of transitioning to using the Advanced X26 Taser in the field.

Now, I wonder what a Taser X26 does, according to its instruction manual [.pdf]:

TASER-induced strong muscle contractions usually render a subject temporarily unable to control his or her psychomotor movements. This may result in secondary injuries such as those due to falls. This loss of control, or inability to catch oneself, can in special circumstances increase the risk(s) of serious injury or death.

But but but, it’s only temporary. Well then, it’s a good thing they didn’t taser him multiple times, or (as the instruction manual says):

When practical, avoid prolonged or continuous exposure(s) to the TASER device’s electrical discharge. In some circumstances, in susceptible people, it is conceivable that the stress and exertion of extensive repeated, prolonged, or continuous application(s) of the TASER device may contribute to cumulative exhaustion, stress, and associated medical risk(s).

“Cumulative exhaustion”? What? Like that’d stop someone from getting up? I’m sorry, I don’t know the specifics, but if the instruction manual clearly states that the student may have been physically incapable to comply with the officers’ requests, you’d think that’d be important.

Excruciating pain is now commonly accepted as a proper way for the police to bend people to their will. It’s often used against the mentally ill who populate our streets and is increasingly used in cases of civil disobedience. It’s not even particularly controversial.

Police insist that it is a great tool to keep them from having to use lethal force. As you can see by this horrific film (via Americablog) it is more commonly used to force compliance and exert absolute authority. In this film you see the police first tasering the college student because he’s yelling at them and then tasering him again on the ground because he refuses to properly respond to an order to stand up.

The thought behind this seems to be that because tasing (usually) doesn’t leave any severe marks or lasting damage, it’s alright for the police to use this tool to inflict terrible pain on people who are slow or refuse to cooperate. In this case, you can see that this was purely a matter of swaying this person to their will, not a matter of protecting themselves or others. There were a whole bunch of police present and dozens of witnesses. They could have dragged the suspect out.