The Librarydude!

Following on from the previous entry, heres a few more links in relation to the “Taser incident” in which UCLA student Mostafa Tabatabainejad was “tasered” by Officers after not providing ID. Those who clicked on the YouTube link in my previous post (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3CdNgoC0cE) will have seen Mostafa being tasered while handcuffed and being “asked” to stand up. Like it is possible to stand up while being shocked with electricity.

So the crime of not producing ID results in being electrocuted. But only if you have a foreign sounding name? And don’t look “American” enough? If his name was Bob Smith, white male from New York, would this have happened?

Now that I think of it, it probably would. The “officers” there seemed like they were too drunk on their own power at the time. And security and police are never racist or prejudiced are they?

But to the links:

The Official Police Report (.pdf format) - http://www.ucpd.ucla.edu/ucpd/zippdf/2006/Taser%2011-15-06.pdf

NBC article - http://www.nbc11.com/news/10328455/detail.html

The UCLA Response - http://newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=7513

Apologies for this not being so much a library based post, but this burns me that this sort of thing could happen.

Originally found out about this over at Library Mofo. Check the site out, but be warned that there is a bit of foul language at times.