Report Criticizes Police in UCLA Library Taser Incident
Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 8/3/2007
An independent investigation of the Nov. 14, 2006 incident at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) library, in which a campus police officer used a Taser at least three times in subduing a passively resistant and verbally combative Iranian-American student, found that "the police response was substantially out of proportion to the provocation." It called the use of force "unnecessary, avoidable, and excessive." The incident, caught in part on cell phone cameras and broadcast on YouTube, generated protests and outrage.
The 77-page report, A Bad Night at Powell Library: The Events of November 14, 2006, states that "this story has no heroes" and notes that Mostafa Tabatabainejad could have obeyed the order to produce his ID. Still, investigators found that the campus police department’s policies give police unnecessary latitude, standing "alone in its legitimization of the Taser as a pain compliance device against passive resisters." The report, by the Police Assessment Resource Center of Los Angeles, recommends several policy changes, including limiting uses of Tasers on aggressive or violent subjects and prohibition of their use on passively resistant subjects and on handcuffed suspects.
Former acting chancellor Norman Abrams, whose term expired July 31, had ordered the investigation; he stated that he supported many of the recommended policy changes and that UCLA Police Chief Karl Ross "will be making revisions." Abrams also noted that a review commissioned by the police department found no policy violations. "Reasonable people may disagree regarding the inferences to be drawn from the same set of facts, and the facts may differ if some witnesses testify in one investigation and not in the other," he said.
Indeed, the university-commissioned investigators were unable to interview the two main responding officers, Tabatabainejad, and several student witnesses. And the library surveillance video system’s internal timestamp was running consistently fast—by about 26 minutes—so it was difficult to coordinate that footage with the YouTube footage and the Taser log’s internal timing mechanism. While Tabatabainejad and witnesses had said he was Tased four or five times, the report states that the Taser recording system, generally considered reliable, identified three applications.
ID check challenges
The library is staffed during extended hours by student employees and community service officers hired and trained by the campus police department. UCLA students have one official form of identification, the Bruin Card, which also serves as a library card. Students must agree to present the card when requested to establish their student status. While they found it "highly unlikely" that the CSO’s check of Tabatabainejad’s ID was motivated by his perceived ethnicity, as he has charged, the investigators noted that the failure of the CSO to check other students in the lab before Tabatabainejad could lead a reasonable person to "have at least some grounds to believe that he… was being targeted."
The report states: "While we cannot conclusively determine whether a check of BruinCards was a routine occurrence, the Community Service Officers who interacted with Tabatabainejad on November 14, 2006 could have used better and more tactical communication skills… They are UCLA students interacting with other UCLA students on campus. As such, they need to be flexible and accommodating in ways police officers dealing with dangerous suspects do not." The report also notes that instructions to the CSOs regarding library procedures send mixed messages, advising courtesy but also that they track down and confront "people trying to avoid getting caught." The report recommends that the police department expand CSO training to include "tactical communications."
The report also says that the officers overstated the aggression of student witnesses: "Our review of both the YouTube video and Library surveillance video casts strong doubt on assertions that the students grew hostile or posed a threat to the officers or Tabatabainejad, especially prior to the first application of the Taser."
Tabatabainejad has filed a federal lawsuit against UCLA, the police, and specific officers, contending that his civil rights were violated and that officers failed to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act, according to the Los Angeles Times. The lawsuit states that he has bipolar disorder and had told the police so during the incident.
