Police brutality at UCLA

By Heraclitus

In case you haven't heard about this incident, a student at UCLA was repeatedly tasered by campus security because...well, there really doesn't seem to be much of a reason. The LA Times story is here. Amanda Marcotte has the video captured by students on their cell phones here. Campus police claim the student refused to leave the library, but witnesses say he was leaving when he was attacked and tasered by the rent-a-pigs. Students who witnessed the attack repeatedly asked the police to stop tasering the student, but to no avail. The police threatened to taser at least one other student who asked them to stop attacking her classmate and for their badge numbers. Nevertheless, the university seems to be trying to defend the brutality. The National Iranian American Council has an account of the brutality here (the student was Iranian-American). You can also send an email criticizing the whole sordid affair, and calling for an external investigation, to the chancellor of UCLA, the head of the UCLA police, and the mayor of Los Angeles. Please take a few seconds to send the email and try to force the university to take some accountability for this act of naked brutality and intimidation that has no place in a university, or, indeed, in any part of a free society.