And, Lazy Riviera — the student was at a computer — not wandering around aimlessly. Wasting time responding to you, however, is wasting time.

Apart from happening in view of a bunch of rich idealistic students, the actions of the police here are not that unusual.

Please list all students who witnessed the incident and provide quantitative evidence of wealth and idealism for each. If you can’t do this, then please post a retraction of this statement.

Christy, you say campus police don’t enforce the state penal code? For a person concerned with accuracy, you fired that one off without much thought. This is from the UC Website:

“The University of California makes every effort to provide safe campus environments for its students. Every UC campus has a police department staffed by s worn peace officers with full law enforcement authority as well as an array of counseling, education, and safety programs.”

I am not arguing that the matter could not have been handled better. But as a former prosecutor you are aware that police are authorized escalate the use of force to meet the resistance of the perpetrator. Apart from happening in view of a bunch of rich idealistic students, the actions of the police here are not that unusual. And it certainly doesn’t rise to the level of police brutality.

I think the confusion comes because this is a public university, right? At Yale for instance, things are handled differently.

Perhaps I have missed it upthread…

but what I find (almost as) equally revolting is the the lack of counter action to stop these sadists. There were more than enough students there….these jerks should have been physically overwhelmed/restrained from employing these tactics. Period. This was a situation where such a response was totally justified….was there not a single person there willing to step forward and physically engage and confront these creeps…and thus protect this victim.

What does this say about us?

Larry, I remember in New Haven there was incident where a man went into a coffee shop and started stabbing people. From what I heard it was sheer pandemonium and noone knew how to act, even though the people in the cafe outnumbered this lone spindly and very disorganized psychotic stabber. Afterwards some kids talked about what *they* would’ve done, but I feel like they would have been in sheer frozen shock as the rest of us. I think whenever I’ve seen some crazy thing happen, everyone including myself gets the glazed eye look before we begin to react. We humans are slow to organize sometimes if something is very shocking or confusing. Just imagine the confusion that this attack comes from a people wearing badges.

“The University of California makes every effort to provide safe campus environments for its students. Every UC campus has a police department staffed by s worn peace officers with full law enforcement authority as well as an array of counseling, education, and safety programs.”

I am not arguing that the matter could not have been handled better. But as a former prosecutor you are aware that police are authorized escalate the use of force to meet the resistance of the perpetrator. Apart from happening in view of a bunch of rich idealistic students, the actions of the police here are not that unusual. And it certainly doesn’t rise to the level of police brutality.

I’m certain these cops also had guns, and if set upon would use them. That can be quite an effective deterant

but what I find (almost as) equally revolting is the the lack of counter action to stop these sadists. There were more than enough students there….these jerks should have been physically overwhelmed/restrained from employing these tactics. Period. This was a situation where such a response was totally justified….was there not a single person there willing to step forward and physically engage and confront these creeps…and thus protect this victim.

What does this say about us?

UCPD Assistant Chief of Police Jeff Young has said that during Tuesday’s incident, officers likely had no way of knowing whether Tabatabainejad was armed, and said the force was used based on Tabatabainejad’s uncooperative behavior.
But [UCLA law professor] Dolovich said it often takes more than strong language on the part of a suspect to justify use of force by police. “Given the setting, given that you have Powell Library, unless there’s some evidence that the student was more than just verbally belligerent, it would be hard for me to believe (that police had no other way to restrain him),” she said.

So there you have it. If someone is not cooperating and you can’t be sure they are not armed (how exactly would you know that) then the UCLA police feel this was justified. Nothing yet about any investigation internal investigation though a local state senator has said that she hopes there in an investigation.
If there are any written guidelines for this sort of use of force by the UCLA cops the local paper has not been able to find them.