Andrew Meyer, if im not mistaken, was tasered at a Florida University for asking Kerry a few questions. The following video shows how Meyer gets up thanks and talks about some book that "says that he won the 2000 election." After getting asked to finish his question(s) he gets interrupted several times. He also talks about impeaching Bush and finally gets pulled away and arrested. However, to top it off, he also gets tasered.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SaiWCS10C5s
I really do not know how the whole questionaire process goes, but did he did anything wrong to get tasered? especially in that kind of manner it was handled?
I see the entire situation as wrong. The student was expressing his feelings and at no point feel that he was a threat to anyone, even Kerry, at that gathering. He may have not asked the question as quickly as he was expected to, but I feel that he gave a great introduction to were he was going with his questions. Like if he had not said anything about the book the questions were going to seem absurd. I feel that that incident was a violation of a person's rights. Especially the way it was handled. I do feel angered and shocked that this is still going on with people in the States. Nowadays, that is ludacris to know we can not speak what we feel in public.
How do you explain this event?
There's so much uproar over this and I really don't understand why. Here's the sequence of events from what I saw:
The guy was saying statement after statement without asking a question. He was asked by Kerry and the police officers to ask a question or go sit down. He continued to rant, going over his supposed allotted time. Kerry continually asked to be able to answer the questions that he finally did pose, but Meyer talked over him. Eventually, the police officers present decided to escort him out of the room for his disrespect. His microphone was turned off and the officers placed their hands on his shoulders and tried to get him to come willingly; the other students began to applaud the officers for their actions. As soon as they put touched him, Meyer jumped up and tried to resist, yelling the whole time. The two officers continued to try to move him to the back of the room, but he continued to flail and struggle. Other officers arrived and the group began making their way to the back with him screaming the whole way. As they reached the top of the ramp, he tried to run off again and the officers brought him to the ground and tried to cuff him for resisting. He continued to flail and yell for another twenty seconds or so, insulting the officers with obscenities. Eventually, the officers tasered him as a last resort in order to get him to come willingly.
Now, if any injustice was done here, it was not that they didn't allow him to speak. They gave him a chance to respectfully ask a question and he abused the privilege. Resisting arrest was a completely separate part of the incident. He was tasered for trying to run away from the police, not for saying the things he did.
John Colby- 17, Tampa, FL