[BREAKING NEWS]: Student shot with Taser by UCPD officers
By Daily Bruin Staff
Nov. 14, 2006 9:00 p.m.
UCPD officers shot a student several times with a Taser inside
the Powell Library CLICC computer lab late Tuesday night before
taking him into custody.
No university police officers were available to comment further
about the incident as of 3 a.m. Wednesday, and no Community Service
Officers who were on duty at the time could be reached.
At around 11:30 p.m., CSOs asked a male student using a computer
in the back of the room to leave when he was unable to produce a
BruinCard during a random check. The student did not exit the
building immediately.
The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers
arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had
begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer
approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told
the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the
student as well.
The student began to yell “get off me,” repeating
himself several times.
It was at this point that the officers shot the student with a
Taser for the first time, causing him to fall to the floor and cry
out in pain. The student also told the officers he had a medical
condition.
UCPD officers confirmed that the man involved in the incident
was a student, but did not give a name or any additional
information about his identity.
Video shot from a student’s camera phone captured the
student yelling, “Here’s your Patriot Act, here’s
your fucking abuse of power,” while he struggled with the
officers.
As the student was screaming, UCPD officers repeatedly told him
to stand up and said “stop fighting us.” The student
did not stand up as the officers requested and they shot him with
the Taser at least once more.
“It was the most disgusting and vile act I had ever seen
in my life,” said David Remesnitsky, a 2006 UCLA alumnus who
witnessed the incident.
As the student and the officers were struggling, bystanders
repeatedly asked the police officers to stop, and at one point
officers told the gathered crowd to stand back and threatened to
use a Taser on anyone who got too close.
Laila Gordy, a fourth-year economics student who was present in
the library during the incident, said police officers threatened to
shoot her with a Taser when she asked an officer for his name and
his badge number.
Gordy was visibly upset by the incident and said other students
were also disturbed.
“It’s a shock that something like this can happen at
UCLA,” she said. “It was unnecessary what they
did.”
Immediately after the incident, several students began to
contact local news outlets, informing them of the incident, and
Remesnitsky wrote an e-mail to Interim Chancellor Norman
Abrams.
With reports from Lisa Connolly, Derek Lipkin and Saba
Riazati, Bruin senior staff.
