As I watched this thing it occurred to me that the simplistic pissed-off-ness of everyones’ responses around the blog-world are displaying are just that – simplistic.
Everyone is shouting about racism, police brutality, and the victim of the tasering even yelled something about the Patriot Act. While some of it probably carries some weight, it seems to me that we’re missing out on what wasn’t seen in the video. The video picks up just as the situation seems to escalate, people are already raising their voices.
What transpired prior to this may have involved racial profiling or whatever; there’s no way to know that for sure (though, I do want to point out that at least one of the cops was African-American and another was of Asian descent – though, that doesn’t preclude them from being racist towards Middle Eastern people).
The issue of police violence may carry some weight. I have read that it does take approximately one minute to stand up after being hit by a taser, which the cops did not afford him any of the times. Also, hearing the cop threaten other students with tasering if they didn’t stop asking questions and all of the cops ignoring the question of their badge number does pose some questions.
The whole referencing of the Patriot Act thing is just plain ignorant. While I am no fan of any incarnation of the Patriot Act it simply does not apply here. The reality is that it is a policy of UCLA to do random checks of IDs after 11PM for student safety and because after that time the computer labs are closed to everyone who is not part of the University system. They had every right to ask students to show their ID after that time – and eject them from the building until they show it to them. Don’t give me crap about a police state with ID cards that have to be carried at all times, being a student at a University submits yourself to the university’s policy of having your ID on you at all times… no matter who you are or how important you think you are; whatever punishment or consequences come of it are determined beforehand by them and you’ve probably been notified of it beforehand. Again, this doesn’t meant that the reason the ‘random’ check wasn’t motivated by the appearance of the individual student.
…I think that’s all.
