Though his pleas of “Don’t tase me, bro,” have been immortalized on the Internet and T-shirts, a recording of University of Florida junior Andrew Meyer resisting arrest and ultimately being tasered by university police after aggressively questioning U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) during a lecture has drawn attention from more than just YouTube.com junkies.
Members of the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as lawmakers, have paid special attention to the controversial apprehension.
The incident inspired YouTube commentary and numerous Facebook.com groups — from “Stand up for Andrew Meyer” to “Andrew Meyer needs a straitjacket, not a taser” — in addition to bloggers, pundits, activists and students who debated whether the dramatic arrest was an infringement of First Amendment rights or a case of police brutality.
UF senior Asia Johnson, who attended the Kerry lecture, said she was appalled at how the campus police handled the situation tackling Meyer while he struggled and screamed, “Don’t arrest me! What did I do wrong? I just asked a question!”
“I started to shake in my seat,” Johnson said. “The young man was five feet away, and I had no control . . . I saw one police officer bring a taser out of his belt, and a second later I heard the shrill noise of the taser and heard the young man scream.”
As he addressed Kerry, Meyer waved a book critical of the Bush Administration by journalist Greg Palast as he asks the senator why he conceded to President Bush in the 2004 presidential election, why he did not attempt to impeach Bush and whether he was a member of the secret Skull ‘ Bones Society just like Bush.
Kenny Maskell, a UF student also at the Kerry forum, said campus police were doing their duty by maintaining the integrity of the political forum after Meyer embarked on a “profanity-ridden” rant.
“The videos only told half the story,” Maskell said. “If Meyer’s question had been, ‘Senator Kerry, what is your favorite color?’ he still would have been immediately removed for his prior disturbance.
“The university police department removed [Meyer] to the cheers of the crowd,” Maskell continued. “It is not a question of the freedom of speech. It is a question of how much of an (expletive) someone can be before a cop tases him.”
Howard Simon, the executive director of the Florida ACLU, said in a news release that neither Kerry nor Meyer were able to exercise their free speech rights because of police action, but admitted more investigation is needed.
Though Boston University Police Department does not use taser guns, spokesman Sgt. Jack St. Hilaire said if a similar situation arose on campus, officers would employ a “continuum of force” policy, in which physical force is used only as a last resort.
“I would first issue a verbal command, warning the person to quiet down or we will physically remove him,” St. Hilaire said. “If he doesn’t listen, and picks up a chair, I have several options to consider: Do I use my stick on him? Do I use my pepper spray? Do we tackle him? Each situation is different and dynamic.”
On the scale of force, he said a taser gun falls somewhere between getting pepper sprayed and being hit with a baton.
“The result may seem dramatic or upsetting, but believe me, striking someone with a baton rod will cause more bodily injury than zapping someone with a taser gun,” St. Hilaire said.
Taser stun guns, which deliver a electrical volt of up to 50,000 volts to disarm an opponent, have faced controversy in recent years because they are potentially fatal. There have been 245 documented deaths from taser guns, according to Amnesty International.
In a similar incident, an Iranian-American UCLA student was stunned with a taser gun last year for not showing identification in the campus library, which again raised questions of police brutality.
UF police officials could not be reached for comment.