Dr. K

"It was an all go route where we had four verticals going up the seam," said Price. "And J.P. in the huddle before the play said, 'I'm not throwing the freaking check down this time. I've got to take a shot in the end zone so guys get open.' I was running the route and the guy covering the slot backed up and sat down and I wrapped around behind him and J.P. threw a great ball and I did a good job of getting my feet down."

Fair enough. The Iranian kid did not give them much help, I'll admit. But cops are always going to be in situations where people are not giving them much help. I just think, given the preponderance of the evidence, the cops behaved very poorly, almost indefensively poorly, in this case. You see it differently. Let's leave it at that. Peace, Dr. K

The question you asked me was this: "Why do you think they did it? What are you suggesting? Seriously, why do you think they did it? What should they have done and how long should they have done it for before tazing was the best choice available or at least a reasonable choice?" Therefore, my response focused specifically on some of the reasons I could think of why the police would have tased the guy repeatedly and let this situation get so crazy. Your question was about the cops' motives, and I presented reasons why they might have acted that way. You're right in that we don't know the exact situation when the kid was first asked for his ID. I bet he was hypersensitive to this situation and reacted badly because of it. It was up to the authorities, in my opinion, to act more rationally than he did. I am a college teacher. I deal with young people all the time. Lots of the young men are angry, lots of the women are confused. I have to try to be an adult when they are not acting like adults. I don't think this Iranian kid was crazy, but I think it would have gone better if the cops could have tried to understand what was going on from his point of view. Once I had a student have a schizophrenic breakdown in the middle of my class. She was incoherent and deeply paranoid. It took me a while to figure out that her erratic behavior was not just an attempt to disrupt things, and that she had a problem. I had to call off the class in the middle, reassure her that no one was trying to hurt her, and gently persuade her to walk with me across campus to the psych center, when at every minute she was ready to get hysterical and bolt. She thought the stoplights were sending her signals. She told me she thought Connie Chung was trying to send her messages over the TV. She thought I was trying to pull a trick on her when we had to walk through a pedestrian tunnel under some railroad tracks that run through the center of campus. I had to reassure her that it was all right to do so, that nothing bad would happen to us. If I had tried to muscle her at any point, it would have been a mess, maybe even a violent one, and she would not have gotten to the center any faster, and in much worse shape. I guess I knew that she would not kill me at any point, so obviously the cop's job is harder. But I think a cop needs to be a good psychologist, not just a guy with a list of rules and a weapon. That's where I'm coming from.

I did not say that his race was the only reason that this happened, and the fact that you immediately jump to that conclusion shows that you are making assumptions about me that are unwarranted. That said, I do think that it is likely that race played a part in this getting out of hand. I think that, if he were white and not or Iranian descent, it is likely that he would not have been carded so readily. Even if he had been, he would not as likely have reacted so negatively to it. I also feel that it is a strong passibility that the cops' recognition of his race played a role in how much of a threat that they perceived him. Not that in my list of reasons this was far from being the only reason. If you take the word "brown" out of my last post, all of the reasons I listed still apply. I am NOT SAYING THAT THIS WAS SOLELY A RACIAL INCIDENT. That is a conclusion that you have jumped to. But can yo honestly say to me that, in the U.S. in 2006, the fact tht the kid was Iranian had NOTHING to do with the police reaction to his being obstreperous? I think you have more intellect than that. As for how they should have reacted, I think that, at the very least, after they tazed him the first time, and the kid is lying on the floor shouting "I am not fighting you" and "I am going." the rational thing to do would be to calm him down, reassure him that you are not going to hurt him further, and wait until he can stand up. GO SLOW! Tell him to lie there calmly. Don'tmake any aggressive actions. Ask him if he can stand. If he says yes, tell him to stand. Escort him out of the library.

They tazed him becaused they lost their tempers, because he did not do what they wanted as fast as they wanted it, because they represent authority and he is just some brown-skinned !@#$ who didn't have an ID card and was therfore clearly in the wrong. They did it because he shouted out about the Patriot Act and they probably considered that prima facie evidence that he was a terrorist or at least disloyal to the United States or at least somebody they did not have to respect. They did it because after they tazed him the first time, he did not get up on their comands to stand up, not caring whether he was physically capable of standing up and despite his protests that he was going to leave. They did it because by that time the thing was out of control and they could not back down. They did it because the crowd of other students was against them,and they felt themselves outnumberd and did not want to lose face by changing their course and it only made them madder at this !@#$ brown guy for putting them in a situation where they will look bad. Is that enough reasons for you? These are completely human and understandable reasons, and all of them are not enough to justify their behavior, in my opinion. I agree with Bart that we have gotten to a point where we are just talking past each other, so I will stop now. I already said that in 90% of these cases, my sympathies lie with the police, who have a hard job to do. I just wish the U.S. weren't so full of people who think the way you do. I'm sure you feel the same way about me.

Your evidence for a conspiracy by the video maker to embarrass the police is non-existent. I am going by the video and the news reports (which apparently you also see as part of some conspiracy). So all the witnesses who say the cops were out of line were wrong. And the evidence of the video itself is not relevant. "You !@#$ with the cops and you're probably in for a beating" is exactly what's wrong with this whole thing."

You keep saying he refused to budge but there is NO EVIDENCE of that. All the resports of witnesses say he was going. On the tape itself he says he is going, and they keep tasing him becasue he can't stand up. Could YOU stand up if you were beeing hit with 30,000 volts every thirty seconds? All this crap about the cops being in harm's way is also just crap. Not one report of this incident ever says the cops were in harm's way. They certainly were not in harm's way when the guy was on the ground, shocke,d and cuffed. You don't care, whatever the cops do is okay with you.

In logic, this is called the argument from ignorance, and is a common fallacy. Neither you nor I know whether there is a china teapot orbiting the sun in the same orbit as the earth. That is not an argument for the existence of this teapot. Your belief in the teapot does not make it real. Conspiracy theorists love the argument from ignorance.

What do you think makes a bad cop? I don't think it's intention to do bad things. I will bet you a dollar that every bad cop thinks he is a good cop. It's human nature. Just like every bad auto mechanic, or teacher, or lawyer thinks he is a good auto mechanic, teacher, or lawyer.

"Who had the camera and why?" You may consider me an idiot, but you are a lunatic. Seen any black helicopters lately?

Do you really think this? That the kid wanted to get tased? Did you watch the video? I don't believe this.

Cops should never let their anger, no matter how justified it may be, control their actions. We give them life-or-death power over us with the expectation that they will use it responsibly. Everyone is human, but this is a job that requires the utmost professionalism and good judgment. Cops should behave better than an angry kid in a universtiy library who's pissed off because he thinks he's being racially profiled.

I see where you stand. We have different ideas of what constitutes reasonable police behavior. I think they thought they were justified in tasing him, but they were criminally stupid or pissed because he gave them a hard time. You should pray that you are never in the hands of an angry cop.

Ruima was the bathroom incident. Dialo was the unarmed guy shot 44 times by one of those special crime squads.

So why do they keep tasing him while he's on the ground and helpless? In handcuffs? This is the definition of unwarranted force. I don't care if the cops felt provoked. I don't care if they got mad. The job of a cop in this situation is not to GET mad. He's supposed to keep his wits about him and be a PEACE KEEPER. These guys should be fired, and I hope they are.

I begin to suspect your 99% support for the police should be 100%. Can you give me an example of an incident where you DID NOT side with the cops? How about the Dialo incident in NYC?

Witnesses said the guy was already leaving when the cops grabbed him. He repeatedly screams that he's leaving and they keep tasing him, even after the have him in handcuffs. Did you watch the video? The people watching did not think he was a hero for standing up to the cops. They were astonished at the unnecessary force the cops used on a guy writhing in pain on the floor. He was completely "under control." The cops were the ones who were out of control.

So what does it take to get you NOT to side with the cops? Did you side with the cops on the Rodney King incident, for instance?

He was cuffed because he didn't stand up after they tasered him repeatedly. Did you watch the video? You think this use of force was warranted in this situation? In every confrontation between a cop and a citizen, do you side with the cop? I do in 95% of the situations. But not all of them.

Exactly. When you take on the job of being a police officer, you also take on the responsibility of acting more rationally than the people you are likely to be dealing with. You have to legal right to use force, and so you better be damned careful that the force you use is warranted. This guy was an American college student of Iranian descent, born and raised in the USA. A U.S. citizen. I don't know what the circumstances were exactly before the cops arrived, but I just wonder, when the security in the library came around to check IDs, were they checking everybody in the study room or did they single him out (perhaps as one of several)? Somebody in this guy's situation has already probably been hassled for years about his descent, his name, his skin color. It's very likely he had a short fuse about being singled out, and did not react well. He probably should have reacted more calmly. NONE of this justifies the cops' actions, in my opinion. Cops have a terribly hard job, but these cops reacted like a gang protecting their turf, not like representatives of the state. Not the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last. Thank God for video cameras.

"Resisting the cops"? According to a study published in the Lancet Medical Journal in 2001, a charge of three to five seconds can result in immobilization for five to 15 minutes, which would mean that Tabatabainejad could have been physically unable to stand when the officers demanded that he do so.

There never has been a lack of Good Germans on this board.

Sorry, Ed's right. It's called double jeopardy. Double indemnity is an insurance term, where the payoff your beneficiaries get if you die is doubled if you die under particular (and rare) circumstances.

It's not the law, it's the Constitution, the fifth amendment. And a good thing, too--otherwise the state could just retry anyone they didn't like over and over again until they got a conviction. Though in this case it leads to a murderer going free. But the world is full of murderers walking free.

....begins Sunday. Put it in the bank.