Spoiler http://youtube.com/watch?v=C-PcS-s9WtQ&feature=related Link of some police tazing a college student for repeatedly asking questions to john kerry
Well he was more than just asking questions. That could if you twist it right be constituted as harassment. Especially the way he was resisting to be taken out. I believe under certain circumstances it is needed to tazer potential threats or people acting irrational.
yeh he deserved it... what an idiot... did he think he was funny or something?? and yeh, he resisted the police from taking him out in an orderly manner... now he might think again before being a smart ass...
Free speech is one thing what happened to him had nothing to do with his constitutional rights. He could have continually talked all he wanted while he was being escorted out if he had stayed calm and left, however, he resisted the security/police escorting him out in which case he becomes a potential risk/threat and must be dealt with accordingly. So he wasn't tazed for speaking out he was tazed for his irrational behavior.
Irrationality is subjective, but irrational or not.. He wasn't tazed when he was flailing about like a madman...He was tazed after he was on the ground, after offering to leave the premises on his own accord. One police officer tazing him would have been sufficient to control him--but more than one was unnecessary ..on of the police officers looked up with a smile on his face during this..and that disturbed me a little. But back to waht you said about free speech having nothing to do with what happened to him: He was escorted out because they wanted him to stop talking..no ?
I must not have been paying too much attention I heard nothing about him leaving by himself also didn't see him get tazed twice so on that point the police would have been wrong. About the free speech thing. What it seems to me is that he did not stop asking questions after his mic was cut and his attitude beforehand quite aggressive and from my point of view what he was doing could be constituted as harassment.
You can't hear his offer to leave, but in the press release or transcript or whatever you call it, it says that he offered to leave on his own. And technically, they didn't taze him twice, more like more than one police officer tazing him at the same time.. I understand where you're coming from on the harassment view, I definitely agree that perhaps he was being a little bit of an asshole..and I'm not condoning his behavior. But I think it's only harassment if the person being "harassed" thinks that.. In this case, Senator Kerry didn't view it as harassment--in fact, he actually told the police that it was okay when they cut the guy's mike. . . He didn't know what happened in the back of the room with the tazing until afterwards...if you also noticed, he continues to answer the question(s)... I dunno..personally, I don't think people need to be tazed until they're posing a physical threat... :nope:
Well I guess to that all I can say is the security was just trying to do their jobs from what they say. From the way he was acting if I was security I would've gotten him out of there just in case.
It was reasonable to tazer him after he started resisting the police, and resisting arrest by the police, but it was completely unreasonable for them to grab him and begin arresting him in the first place. His questions were reasonable, if controversial. I believe (Sincerely Hope?) that the escort of premises was based however on his agressiveness, tone, and continuous forcing rather that because of the topics he was bringing up.