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5 or 6 cops could not subdue that kid when they have him pinned to the ground already?
That's debatable.
5 or 6 cops could not subdue that kid when they have him pinned to the ground already?
Also, have you seen the full video, which is about two minutes long?
Once he made that move to rush back in the auditorium, all bets were off.
For some reason I'm having a hard time sympathizing for a priveleged college boy who thinks he can challenge police while in the presence of a United States Senator. His dose of reality could have been much more severe.
Well, if there's anything positive about it, at least it's a step up from throwing a pie. Progress?
If that had been President Bush rather than John Kerry, and the young man had pulled a stunt like that, he would have been shot and killed. Does anybody doubt that? Would there be any real debate about it?
Yeah, we can't have a US Senator have to sit through an unscripted and boorish line of questioning.
The one I saw was 4 minutes long.
That kid is what this country needed. This society is moving into conformity where people are afraid to ask questions and question authority. So what if his questions were antagonistic or annoying to John Kerry?
And for public peace or safety being the reason he was arrested? Please, a riot was more likely to break out for the way the cops handled that than anything that kid did.
That kid had more balls than I have or 99.9% of this generation. I admire his courage of going against the grain and trying to make his mark in a political forum.
The common people should stand up in real life. Actual grass roots politics - not just in blogs or videos on the computer.
The law isn't always right chumpdumper.
Just because you win doesn't mean it's right.
Just because you're the authority - even in the United States - doesn't mean you're right.
What kind of open forum in it if you can't have passionate speech or talk for a few minutes?
Chumpdumper, if everyone thinks like you, in 2100, our children will live in boxes where they are restricted even moreso in how they can think and act.
This nation has regressed in liberties and rights. Hopefully there are more speakers like this kid that provoke more questions.
I count 7 cops on him while he is pinned down on the ground. And they had to Taser him? Someone's a bit trigger happy.
Nowadays most public officials seem unwilling to have to deal with the little people. The President has never seemed willing to appear at any kind of public event where he might be graced with the presence of dissenters in his midst. IIRC his predecessor was the same way. Bush 41 I'm not sure about as well as Reagan. It certainly seems like politicians in general over the last decade have found ways to avoid unscripted and perhaps unfavorable interaction. Has our politics become that poisoned?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7NWukZhsi...elated&search=
This video captured what happened once he was taken out of the lecture hall. The cop tells him he was arrested for trying to "incite a riot." Oh well, just another day in America. Please check your opinions at the door. Or you will be Tasered.
Thank God for widely available digital video recording devices and easy ways to distribute video recordings.
From a eye-witness at the event...
Brad BlogHowever, while Senator Kerry was responding to a student’s question, all of a sudden Meyer rushed to the microphone with cops in pursuit. At that point no one knew what was going on. Could he have a gun, a bomb? Immediately, Meyer began yelling into the microphone that he had been waiting in line forever and that Senator Kerry should “spend time to answer everyone’s questions!” Senator Kerry tried to calm the student down by telling him that he would “stay here as long as it takes to get the questions answered.” The police approached Meyer who began taunting them by saying “what! are you going to taser me? are you going to arrest me?!” The police grabbed Meyer, but Senator Kerry asked the police to let him go and that he would answer his question. Senator Kerry finished answering the other student’s question and then proceeded with Meyer. (*This entire scene is not in any video I can find so far. This is why 2 cops are seen right behind Meyer at the start of some videos*).
Meyer approached the microphone and began to talk about a book he had which stated that Kerry won the 2004 election because of disenfranchisement of black voters and faulty voter machines that produced “Bush” as the winner. He then posed another question about why President Bush had not been impeached. “President Clinton was impeached because of a blowjob, why not Bush?”. The third and strangest question he posed to Senator Kerry was asking him if he was part of the skull and bones society with Bush at Yale. Meyer’s mic cut off after that, probably because he had mentioned the word “blowjob”. The cops grabbed him, but Meyer was able to get away several times. Eventually more cops were brought in to help subdue Meyer. Meyer continued to resist arrest, scream, curse; however he was enventually subdued by about six cops up around the entrance. As he is on the ground, he is told several times to put his hands around his back. He is also warned that he will be tasered if he does not comply. Eventually he is tasered twice. The video does not show whether he complied or not.
Senator Kerry was trying to answer his question to the audience, mostly the one about faulty voter machines. I am a die hard conservative Republican but I do respect Senator Kerry for trying to soothe the situation as best he could and trying not to escalate the situation. He DID intervene by letting the student at least present his question. I never received an opportunity to ask my question, but when Senator Kerry ended the show after the Meyer incident, he did come off stage to shake hands and give autographs. At that point, I was able to ask him my question, shake his hand, and get a autograph at the same time. Now why couldn’t Andrew Meyer do that?
I don’t know if this is relevant or not, but Andrew Meyer is a former sports writer for the school newspaper The Alligator. In his columns, he has been known to make ridiculous statements in order to gain attention for himself. Was today a publicity stunt?
What book was Meyer waiving at Kerry?
Tasered Student, Waiving Greg Palast Book, Asked Kerry About Conceding 2004 Presidential Election
Floppingaces'In this book, it says five million votes were supressed. Didn't you want to be President?' Asks 21-Year-Old Prior to be Dragged Off by Security
'Kerry, true to character, stood immobile,' Notes the New York Times Best-Selling Author in Response...
Fortunately, it happened at a John Kerry event. So we'll likely hear a whole lot about this incident. Had it happened at a Republican event, Fox "News" and the rest of the news channels that receive their assignments from them, would have made this a one-day story at best.
The blurry-ish video version of the incident (available via the link below), shows the entire statement and questions asked by University of Florida student Andrew Meyer. He was waving the recently released paperback version of investigative journalist Greg Palast's Armed Madhouse and recommend the book to Kerry before asking him about his early concession to the 2004 Presidential Election.
"He says you won the 2004 Election, isn't that amazing?," proclaimed Meyer referring to Palast's claims in the book. The 21-year-old student continued on to speak about "multiple reports of disenfranchisement of black voters in Florida and Ohio on the day of the election" and "electronic voting machines in Volusia County, Florida that counted backwards."
Harry dies.
pretty funny
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to pe ion the Government for a redress of grievances.
ARE WE NOT AMERICANS? WE SHOULD NOT LET THIS INCIDENT GO UNCHECKED.
What a ing annoying kid!
I'm sorry, he got what he deserved.
hahahaha
Don't Taze me Bro!
That one completely changed my opinion. What a .
The tasered student apparently has a history of taping jokes
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/09/18...red/index.html
But the student's behavior and past activities are prompting questions about whether the incident was part of a stunt.
The Florida Division of Law Enforcement will investigate Monday's arrest of Andrew Meyer, said University of Florida President J. Bernard Machen. Machen called the incident "regretful for us."
"The thing that I regret is that civil dialogue and civil discourse did not happen," Machen said. "That's fundamental to a university campus. Why it didn't happen is what we're trying to sort out."
During Monday's forum, Meyer came to the microphone to question the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee from Massachusetts. Watch the incident unfold »
"You will take my question because I have been listening to your crap for two hours," Meyer told Kerry, according to the police report of the incident.
He then turned to a woman and said "Are you taping this? Do you have this? You ready?" the report said.
Clarissa Jessup, who contributed I-Report video of the incident to CNN, said Meyer gave her his camera and asked her to shoot video of him posing his questions to Kerry.
Organizers had cut off questioning before Meyer went to the microphone, she said. Watch Jessup describe the incident
Meyer asked Kerry why he did not contest his loss to President Bush in the pivotal state of Ohio over allegations that African-American voters were disenfranchised.
Meyer also questioned Kerry about why he did not support impeaching Bush and whether he belonged to the Yale University secret society Skull and Bones, as Bush did.
One of the police officers on the scene observed that Meyer was "yelling as loud as he could as to sensationalize his presence," according to the police report.
Meyer had about a minute and a half at the microphone before police stepped in to haul him away. As he tried to escape their grip, Kerry protested, "That's all right, let me answer his question."
But as Meyer repeatedly questioned why he was being arrested, officers dragged him to the back of the auditorium and then used a Taser on him when he continued to struggle.
While Kerry pleaded for calm, officers warned the student he would be shocked if he did not stop resisting.
Meyer responded, "What did I do? Get off me ... get the f--- off me, man, I didn't do anything. Don't Tase me, bro, I didn't do anything."
Police noted that his demeanor "completely changed once the cameras were not in sight" and described him as laughing and being lighthearted as he was being driven to the Alachua County Detention Center.
"I am not mad at you guys, you didn't do anything wrong. You were just trying to do your job," Meyer said, according to the police report.
At one point, he asked whether there were going to be cameras at the jail, according to the report.
Meyer was charged with resisting arrest with violence -- a felony -- and a misdemeanor count of disturbing the peace. He was released without having to post bond Tuesday.
Machen said the clips posted online paint an incomplete picture of the scene. Watch the university's reaction
University spokesman Steve Orlando said before police moved in, Meyer was asked to relinquish the microphone because he was "being disruptive."
But the arrest triggered a protest by a group of University of Florida students Tuesday. One of them, Benjamin Dictor, called the arrest "an assault on reason itself."
"For a question to be met with arrest, not to mention physical violence, is completely unacceptable in the United States," Dictor said.
Some students cheered Meyer's removal, and others looked on quietly. But several screamed in protest when officers prepared to shock him.
Meyer was carrying a business card advertising "TheAndrewMeyer.com 'Speak My Mind,' " the police report said.
The Web site features videos of Meyer taking part in several practical jokes. It also includes a "disorganized diatribe" that criticizes the war in Iraq and the media.
The Web site said his friends had posted coverage of his arrest.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Kerry said he didn't know a Taser had been used on the student until after he left the event, and said he hoped no one was injured.
"In 37 years of public appearances, through wars, protests and highly emotional events, I have never had a dialogue end this way," he said.
"I believe I could have handled the situation without interruption, but again, I do not know what warnings or other exchanges transpired between the young man and the police prior to his barging to the front of the line and their intervention."
Machen said authorities have not determined whether Tasers were used improperly.
In addition, he said a student-faculty review panel will examine "all of our protocols relative to student dialogue and faculty interaction" in the wake of the incident.
Too funny. After all this, he was just being an attention out to create a disturbace as one of his little pranks. He got exactly what he deserved.
Last edited by IceColdBrewski; 09-18-2007 at 10:59 PM.
Nothing better than a couple vigilante cops busting prima donna college students with a Taser. America. yeah.
Vigilante cops? Don't be an idiot. The guy was being an asshole and was disturbing the peace. They tried to escort him out peacefully but prankboy wasn't done putting on his show yet. When you start resisting arrest, all bets are off. The cops don't know if he's got a weapon or what until they can get his hands cuffed.
Yes, much of what colors your excuse for the cops' excessive use of force smacks of an endorsement of vigilantism. Being an asshole isn't enough cause for an arrest. Nor does it justify administering a shock to a subject who was already subdued on the ground by 7 officers. Especially a subject who had made no threats nor had any exhibited any reason to suspect that he had a weapon. This was a situation which could have easily been prevented had cooler heads prevailed.
I suspect after review that the cops will receive some kind of disciplinary action for their overreaction.
I don't care how some of you justify the action by the police. It was flat out wrong.
Oh well, another insight into people morals.
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