Video Summary: An Iranian American UCLA student gets tasered, handcuffed and tasered again by white cops for not showing his college ID. Backstory below. My comments below that.

UCLA Police Taser Student For Not Showing ID

“LOS ANGELES — A cell phone captured video of a 23-year-old student being administered multiple Taser shocks by UCLA police on Tuesday.

The UCLA student was hit with the Taser shocks multiple times while he was in the Powell Library Computer Lab.

Another student recorded the incident on a camera phone. On the video, Mostafa Tabatabainejad can be heard screaming during the incident, which took place at about 11:30 p.m., the Daily Bruin reported.”

Community responds to Taser use in Powell

“An incident late Tuesday night in which a UCLA student was stunned at least four times with a Taser has left the UCLA community questioning whether the university police officers’ use of force was an appropriate response to the situation.

(snip)

A six-minute video showed Tabatabainejad audibly screaming in pain as he was stunned several times with a Taser, each time for three to five seconds. He was told repeatedly to stand up and stop fighting, and was told that if he did not do so he would “get Tased again.”

Tabatabainejad was also stunned with the Taser when he was already handcuffed, said Carlos Zaragoza, a third-year English and history student who witnessed the incident.”

Watch this video. It is not an easy video to view. I cried when I heard Mostafa Tabatabainejad begging for mercy. But it is an important video to see. Watch this video because reading about the event is not the same as seeing what really happened. There are many versions of this video on the Internet but I picked this version because there are two video responses, one from an Iranian American woman and another from an Iranian American man, that I think should be watched as well.

Watch this video and think about the implications of living in a “Papers please” society. Think about racial profiling. Would a white, blond haired, blue-eyed frat member college student have been “randomly” asked for his ID? Watch a student ask for the cop’s badge number and see how the cop points the taser at the innocent bystander and threaten to tase him as well. Watch how the cops taser a man whose hands are handcuffed behind his back. Listen to the cops demanding this man stand up immediately after they send electricity jolting through his body. Ask yourself why an Iranian American was treated this way in a time where Middle Easterners and Muslims are often treated as suspect in this country by many of its inhabitants. Think about what kind of society tortures people to protect their freedom. Watch, think and ask yourself: Are we really free?

Posted by Vixen in Political Rants, News