Concern, Debate Over UCLA Library Taser Incident

-- Library Journal, 11/21/2006

Hundreds of students and others in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) community held a mass protest last Friday in response to the use of a Taser by campus police to subdue a student who was noncompliant but hardly violent. Student Mostafa Tabatabainejad, of Iranian-American descent (and Baha'i faith), resisted showing his campus identification while in the Powell Library because he believed it to be racial profiling, according to his attorney, who plans a suit for false arrest. However, the issue seems murky; a witness told the Daily Bruin that, while the unarmed student Community Service Officer (CSO) had not been consistently checking for ID at the time of the incident, they did ask others besides Tabatabainejad. When he resisted, they called police.

The Daily Bruin editorialized, "Whether Tabatabainejad had some sort of punishment coming his way for failing to comply in a timely manner with orders from CSOs is up for debate. But the fact that UCPD officers shocked Tabatabainejad with a Taser five times for merely being uncooperative should concern everyone." The newspaper observed that Tabatabainejad was shocked in intervals of less than five minutes, which could easily have immobilized him and caused him to fail to comply with police orders to stand up. Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams has announced both an internal investigation as well as an independent investigation. Meanwhile, UCLA is concerned that students and parents may be deterred from considering the school; the incident gained instant notoriety after footage shot from a cell phone camera was broadcast on YouTube.