Tuscaloosa police use taser on student

crimsonaudio said:

I'm unaware of anyone ever arguing / resisting their way out of being arrested. Maybe it's happened, but I doubt it. Whether they're violating your civil rights or not, the place to determine that is in the court room, not with the officer(s) who has decided to arrest you.

You simply won't win in the short term. Ever.

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i agree 100%. but also, i take issue with people being beaten by multiple people (and it being at least marginally legal) for the "crime" of being a d-bag or not "respecting" the officer properly.

92tide said:

i agree 100%. but also, i take issue with people being beaten by multiple people (and it being at least marginally legal) for the "crime" of being a d-bag or not "respecting" the officer properly.

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You are right. Two wrongs do not make a right.
I recall Tony Brown getting into some altercation with the Tuscaloosa PD the summer before his freshman year and I recall saying on this forum that video would have been helpful, because Brown's telling of the story did not match up with the TPD's version of the same story.
It is a good thing that folks are starting to videotape police actions.
Video is your friend.

92tide said:

i agree 100%. but also, i take issue with people being beaten by multiple people (and it being at least marginally legal) for the "crime" of being a d-bag or not "respecting" the officer properly.

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especially in a college town where the cops should be used to dealing with drunk, entitled a-holes

230kv_barehand said:

After he threw his hands up that one cop hit him repeatedly with a 6 cell Mag-Light. I promise you that hurt, probably more so than the taser!! You can hear the light hitting his back.

I agree we don't know what happened before the video, but the force used might have been a bit much.

I've been subject to police brutality when the only thing I done was open the door to my apartment before. All because they were looking for a tweaker that lived there before us. We were living there from February and this was in December. That shows you how far behind they were and they took it out on me and left with nothing but a "sorry" after hand cuffing me in my boxers and parading me outside like I was a crook.

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I think the person was instructed to lie face down and when he didn't comply the cops gave him a little more incentive.--partial blue font

I don't think this will end well for the TPD. Even if there was a justifiable reason to have that many officers there for a noise complaint, the video certainly paints a poor picture of the initial officers response.

I had 5 Arab city cruisers pull up with 2 cops per car, 10 in total, back in the 90's when I was having a music jam for this very reason, noise complaint. I met them all walking up to the music hall, (shed to be exact) before they got to the front door. One of them told me about the complaint and I apologized and told them I would turn it down and they politely thanked me and left. The only reason I could see for that many showing up was that they thought there was going to be a confrontation and came prepared. Those 5 police cruisers jammed up the road in and out and I had to direct the police out of there lol!! Never thought I would ever have to direct traffic for the police!!

Their should be protocols for handling situations like this and I think there are. First he should have explained to them in a calm way the situation and what would occur if they did not cooperate. If they shut the door in his face anyways, he should have made a quick call downtown to obtain a search warrant, contacted the land lord or manager of the apartment, obtained the contact info on who was leasing/renting the apartment, most likely parents. Contacted the parents and explained the situation if at all possible, then contacted the utility companies, cut off electricity, water, gas and cable to the apartment then waited for them to come out which they most certainly would have done! Once outside promptly arrest and detain all that were in the apartment who did not come out peacefully then searched the apartment with warrant in hand covering their tails.

Chances are their lease agreement has a termination clause for illegal activity and those brats would have learned a valuable lesson in respect, or at least you would hope so. Instead he let his emotions get the best of him, leading to most likely losing his job and probably lawsuits. This hurts the city, the department, the university, the families and all involved when it could have been totally avoided by a cool headed thinking professional.

Ask yourself who you would think should have the better judgement here, college students or professionally trained police officers dedicated to serve and protect? As someone said earlier two wrongs do not make a right but the police look to be in trouble here.

crimsonaudio said:

Was the part in bold supposed to be blue?

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i could see the benefit of backing away from a situation like this and showing back up at 6 in the morning with a few extra charges thrown in. in hindsight, the tpd would look much better. but i realize that is not very realistic

What escalated the situation will be more important than the videos, because just for the record they drive stunned the frat and didn't shoot him with a taser. So he still had complete control of his body and was still resisting.

92tide said:

i could see the benefit of backing away from a situation like this and showing back up at 6 in the morning with a few extra charges thrown in. in hindsight, the tpd would look much better. but i realize that is not very realistic

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What if the original reason for the call was a neighbor complaining about noise at 2:00 am? I agree your proposal would have been less violent, less confrontational and would have made the TPD look better, but the neighbors have to just wait until morning?

crimsonaudio said:

Possibly, yes - but I doubt the police have ever done that in all of history. Once they're on the scene, they're going to deal with the situation.

Again, I'm highly critical of police abuse, and this one looks bad for TPD - but it escalated in large part because these people decided they should argue / resist their way out of it. That will NEVER happen, good cop or bad.

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oh, i know.

Tidewater said:

What if the original reason for the call was a neighbor complaining about noise at 2:00 am? I agree your proposal would have been less violent, less confrontational and would have made the TPD look better, but the neighbors have to just wait until morning?

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yeah, i understand and know they should knock it off when asked. i'm talking about the escalation.

i have had instances when i lived in apartments where i woke up at 5:30-6 am and started browsing my album collection

If he had just gone outside, he probably would have just been told to turn the music down. Everyone lives happily ever after.

BamainBoston said:

Cops were totally in the wrong on this one. There's a reason they want you to "step outside." A police officer has no right to enter your home unless there is an imminent threat of harm to another or he has a warrant. If the cop wanted to issue a citation, he should have issued it. If he wanted to arrest the kids, he should have gotten a warrant. Under no circumstances should he have behaved as he did. I'm usually the first to defend the cops, but not here.

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Great point. One wonders why they just didn't issue the citation and leave. Dealing with city hall over a minor offense like this is much more of a punishment than any likely fine. I wonder how frequently a cop can issue a citation, every ten minutes until the music gets turned down? Write the citation, issue it, wait ten minutes, repeat.

Then again, slamming mouthy drunk college student "jailhouse lawyers" is probably considered one of the perks of office for some.

I noticed several of the police officers apologizing for the incident and trying to de-escalate the situation. The first cop was just not having it. As much as I detest college students who act like these did--and I stressed that in my previous post--I think the officer did use too much force on the guy in the white shirt. Once the cop got him outside, he didn't seem to be resisting but they stunned him anyway. Then used that rubber thing to beat him on the back side. I still stand by my comments about Caroline. She did end up being the girl who was arrested and I couldn't be happier about that.