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Florida College Student Tasered After Asking John Kerry About Contesting '04 Election [VIDEO]
By GottaLaff
Posted on September 18, 2007, Printed on November 25, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers//62882/
This post, written by GottaLaff, originally appeared on Brave New Films
UPDATE II: Romney makes fun of the whole tasering incident. Read about it here
Thanks to reader Impeach Bush for this: U.S. Sen. John Kerry's speech at the University of Florida came to a dramatic close Monday, shortly after a vocal audience member was hauled off by police and shot with a Taser gun. He's a college student. He resisted, but he did not start any violence, threaten an officer, or hurt anyone.The student claimed that University Police Department officers had already threatened to arrest him, and then proceeded to question Kerry about why he didn't contest the 2004 presidential election and why there had been no moves to impeach President Bush. A minute or so into what became a combative diatribe, Meyer's microphone was turned off and officers began trying to physically remove him from the auditorium. Meyer flailed his arms, yelling as police tried to restrain him. A fellow student who witnessed the event was appalled, saying that the officers escalated the situation. He also said that Meyer had acted inappropriately by "rushing" the microphone and forcing a question on Kerry.
But he didn't think Meyers deserved this:
He was then pushed to the ground by six officers, at which point Meyer yelled, "What have I done? What I have I done? Get away from me. Get off of me! What did I do? ... Help me! Help." Police threatened to user a Taser on Meyer if he did not "comply," but he continued to resist being handcuffed. He was then Tased, which prompted him to scream and writhe in pain on the floor of the auditorium. 6 cops. One college student with a big mouth. Yeah, that's fair.
Other than acknowledging Meyers' question, Kerry apparently did nothing.
UPDATE: Kerry condemns student's arrest
At the ABC's Political Radar blog, Rick Klein reports that Kerry is condemning the arrest of 21-year-old University of Florida student Andrew Meyer.
"In 37 years of public appearances, through wars, protests and highly emotional events, I have never had a dialogue end this way," Kerry wrote in a statement. "I believe I could have handled the situation without interruption, but 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. I asked the police to allow me to answer the question and was in the process of responding when he was taken into custody."
"I was not aware that a taser was used until after I left the building," Kerry added. "I hope that neither the student nor any of the police were injured. I regret enormously that a good healthy discussion was interrupted."
Klein adds, "Kerry, who was the Democrats’ nominee in 2004, is no longer assigned Secret Service protection, and does not bring his own security to events. That left University of Florida police in charge of security -- to notable results on Monday."
GottaLaff is a regular blogger for Cliff Schecter's Blog
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View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers//62882/
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