A university student who raised a question (or, more accurately, presented an argumentframed as a question) at Kerry's University of Florida appearance was hauled away by police and stunned with a taser for disrupting the event. Afterward, Kerry too appears rather stunned, or at least I thought so:
As you can see, Kerry asks the police to allow the student to ask his question and actually continued to answer it after the student was removed. Captain Jeff Holcomb of the University Police Department indicates that the use of the Taser gun "would only be justified in a case where there was a threat of physical harm to officers." [The Gainesville Sun] In other words, if I understand him correctly, it's not the fact of a disruption, but the existence of a physical threat to the officers, that must be established in the investigation which he states will follow. [The Gainesville Sun]
Meyer's grandmother said, ""He gets very, very overcome with passion for whatever he is feeling. Maybe the passion took over.'"'[The Gainesville Sun] Apparently. But of course, the long-winded argument-disguised-as-question is a fairly common feature of Q&A sessions everywhere.
Reaction so far suggests that many members of the public assume that the police were using the stun gun as an alternative to the old-fashioned vaudeville hook and that they believe that the police went a bridge too far. In fact, the police seem clearly to have decided that the student was "resisting" and that tasering him was necessary. Presumably, based on Captain Jeff Holcomb's remarks, the arresting officers will need to show that it was necessary to prevent him from harming them. Was the force they used excessive in the circumstances? Was removing an aggressive questioner who challenged a visiting lecturer necessary in the first place to preserve order? As I do not know the answer to either question, I am not going to comment of either the student or the police. I can't tell from the videotape exactly what happened between the student and the police.
In any event, it seems clear that John Kerry's preference would have been to let the student get his question(s) off his chest. I am wearily surprised that some people are blaming him for the incident, since it's clear from the film that he had nothing at all to do with it.
So I should say that it's clear to me that Kerry was at best a bystander here and that he had no real choice to be anything else. I see that other people think he should have done more. The public reaction interests me because the reaction shows the extent to which people today filter events---even ones that anyone can observe----through their own preconceptions and beliefs.
The tape's right there at YouTube. You can see the same footage I saw. You can decide for yourself what to think about it. Not that this means you'll interpret it objectively or that I can.....because I shouldn't say that "people today" filter events as if all of human history---whatever you conceive this to be---weren't a process of selective filtering. This just shows that even reasonable persons such as you and I can look at the same incident through EXACTLY the same lens and reach very different conclusions about what it means.
UPDATE: UF Student Out of Jail, has Ties to South Florida
The account below is consistent with my own observations of the video footage.
Videos of the Monday night incident, posted on several Web sites and played repeatedly on television news, sho w police officers pulling Meyer away from the microphone after he asks Kerry about impeaching President George W. Bush and whether he and Bush were both members of the secret society Skull and Bones at Yale University.
University spokesman Steve Orlando said Meyer was asked to leave the microphone after his allotted time was up. Meyer could be seen refusing to walk away and getting upset that the microphone was cut off.As two officers took Meyer by the arms, Kerry, D-Mass., could be heard saying, "That's all right, let me answer his question."Audience members applauded , and Meyer struggled for several seconds as up to four officers tried to remove him from the room. Meyer screamed for help and tried to break away from officers with his arms flailing at them, then was forced to the ground and officers order ed him to stop resisting.As Kerry told the audience he would answer the student's "very important question," Meyer yelled at the officers to release him, crying out, "Don't Tase me, bro," just before he was shocked by the Taser gun. He was then led from the room, screaming, "What did I do?"
Meyer was arrested on charges of resisting an officer and disturbing the peace, according to Alachua County jail records, but the State Attorney's Office had yet to make the formal charging decision. Police recommended charges of resisting arrest with violence, a felony, and disturbing the peace and interfering with school administrative functions, a misdemeanor. (Local10.com)
Bernie Machen, the president of the University has asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the incident. Two officers involved in it have been placed on leave, "pending the outcome of the probe." (Local10.com) ""We're absolutely committed to having a safe environment for our faculty and our students so that a free exchange of ideas can occur," Machen said."" (Local10.com)
John Kerry said that he regretted that a healthy discussion was interrupted. He said that in 37 years of public appearances, he's never had a dialogue end in this fashion. He did not see interference with the police as a prerogative. (Local10.com) ""Whatever happened, the police had a reason, had made their decision that there was something they needed to do. Then it's a law enforcement issue, not mine," he told The Associated Press in Washington."" (Local10.com)
For more, check out the article. I still have no opinion on the interaction, beyond what I've said concerning my perception of Kerry's [lack of] involvement. Having watched the video several times, I find that I become more, not less, unsure of what occurred and what I think about it. I'm surprised, as I always am, by the rush to judgment on the part of some members of the public.
Buck Naked Politics' Woman of Mass Discussion, who attended the event, has a different take
Tasers, Truth and Lessons Learned
LINKS
I think people's overwhelming frustration with the current political world, their own feelings of powerlessness, amplifies their feelings that this young man was treated unjustly. On an individual basis, sure, he probably deserved to be thrown out and the taser might not have been so far out of line with how he was struggling against them.
But in the broader context of a government unresponsive to the people's grievances of eroding liberties and a brewing financial collapse, an event like this is the kind of flashpoint that riots get started over.
Posted by: Ben | September 18, 2007 at 03:51 PM
I think your assessment is dead-on.
Posted by: The Crux | September 18, 2007 at 07:06 PM