You’ve probably heard the news, maybe even seen the video, about University of Florida student Andrew Meyer being tasered and arrested yesterday “just for asking a question” at a John Kerry event. NBC has a video here and one of several videos from a different perspective is available here. According to his arrest report, it’s recommended Meyer be charged with “resisting an officer with violence,” “disturbing the peace,” and “interference with school administration functions.”
Libertarians have jumped on this as an example of “police brutality.” Democrats are accusing the police of suppressing free speech, saying “some cops could benefit from a good beating.” Michael Savage insists that a “bull-dyke fascist” tasered Meyer for “[asking] Kerry too many questions.”
I’ll admit I’m biased - I am very pro-cop. However, I’ll also admit police do sometimes go overboard and legitimate cases of police brutality do exist. This is not one of them.
As documented in the arrest report, Kerry participated in a short question and answer session after his speech. The organizers had officially ended the Q&A when Meyer charged down the aisle. He obscenely demanded he be allowed to pose a question, saying, “You will take my question because I have been listening to your crap for two hours.” Kerry graciously (I say this as a non-Kerry supporter) agreed to take Meyer’s question. At that point, one of the arresting officers asked Meyer if he was a student, to which he responded with a hostile “I don’t have to tell you.”
So Meyer posed an antagonistic question, asking Kerry why he conceded the 2004 presidential election in light of ostensible voter fraud. Without giving him a chance to respond, Meyer peppered Kerry with two more confrontational questions which included an obscene reference to oral sex. The event organizer ordered Meyer’s mic cut and requested the police remove Meyer from the auditorium.
After requesting Meyer accompany them so they could speak with him, officers began to escort him out. Meyer immediately began screaming and flailing his arms about. As one officer says and the videos document, “He attempted to break our grips on his arms and began to actively resist by struggling, twisting and pushing.” Another officer reports:
Officer Wise and I grabbed both of the man’s arms and asked him to come with us out of the auditorium to speak with us. The man then lifted me up and pushed Officer Wise to avoid being taken into custody… [Various officers] tried to assist…in getting a hold of the punching and kicking irate man… The man continued to scream and yell as well as push, kick, and elbow the officers attempting to take him into custody. After multiple attempts to tell him to stop resisting, the man said, “No” and continued to push and elbow the officers. Only one handcuff was placed on the man as he continued to punch his way out of the hold. The officers could not get a hold of his other arm as he was kicking, punching, and elbowing into officers.
Notice the last two sentences. I recently took an arrest and control class, where one of the first things I learned regarding handcuffing technique is the danger presented by an unsubdued arrestee wearing only one cuff. Such a person can easily use the unsecured cuff as a gouging weapon. In fact, officers wisely attempted to tase Meyer at that point. One officer writes: “Due to Meyer’s erratic flailing, the inability to attain Meyer’s left arm from his resistance, and increased potential for injury with one cuff on, Sgt. King attempted to deploy a contact tase to no avail.”
The officers managed to take Meyer to the ground. He still resisted arrest by refusing to place his arms in handcuff position, shouting obscenities, and attempting to rise from the ground. In the second video, you can clearly hear an officer say, “Put your hands behind your back and you won’t be tased.” In the NBC video, officers warn Meyer multiple times that “you will be tased [if you don’t cooperate].” Finally, after his continued noncooperation, officers tased Meyer and succeeded in handcuffing him. Obviously unharmed, Meyer then stood and walked out of the auditorium with officers, talking the whole time.
While he was “escorted down stairs with no cameras in sight, he remained quiet, but once the cameras made their way down stairs he started screaming and yelling again.” Whether for the cameras or because he really believed it, he began babbling irrationally. The NBC video documents his comments after leaving the auditorium. Among other things, he tells the officers, “You can’t just, like, kill me.” He also cries, “Oh my God, you’re giving me to the government,” and tells the officers, “I’m afraid to tell you [my name].” As he’s being led off, he tells bystanders, “They are going to try and kill me.”
He was apparently acting for the camera, as the arrest report says, “Meyer was laughing and being lighthearted in the car, his demeanor completely changed once the cameras were not in sight.” During the ride to jail, he told officers, “I am not mad at you guys, you didn’t do anything wrong, you were just trying to do your job.”
Basically, Meyer was disruptive after the event ended. He harangued Kerry. He refused to leave the auditorium upon request. He assaulted the officers trying to make him leave. He resisted arrest. Inductive reasoning would indicate Meyer was deliberately trying to cause a scene and playing to the camera.
My conclusion is that since he was at a privately hosted event, Meyer had no intrinsic right to free speech in that venue. He deserved to be kicked out for his belligerent, disruptive behavior and he earned an arrest the instant he assaulted the police officers.
Later I’ll address the wisdom of tasering Meyer under these conditions.
