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Originally Posted by Kalibah
If so then their stopping him was totally justified. If he broke a university rule- ie failed to show ID- then the fact that he was leaving is moot- he broke a rule. From what I understand library staff asked him to show an ID and he refused - at that time he could have left without an alteraction (still breaking the rules however).
Its like trespassing- it doesnt matter if you will leave when the cops show up - when they get there - they are going to investigate.
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I get the idea Kalibah that your timeline is pretty much the way it happened, except now the cops are saying that he WASN'T leaving, but the witnesses are saying that he was.
The consequence of breaking the rule says that he will be asked to leave, not that he will be tazered. If the goal was to get him out of the library, this was not a necessary way to do it. It seems like anyone that thinks this was an acceptable response are basically saying, "the kid was an arsehole and deserved this."
The problem with that is that in this nation people are supposed to go before a jury and be found to be guilty of a crime, and then sentenced to a REASONABLE punishment BEFORE the punishment takes place. The police, other students, librarians, teachers, etc. are not supposed to be allowed to meet out punishments without due process.
If they were just trying to get the guy out, and he was already leaving, and his first real fit, not just inaction, but real honest fit, was when he demanded the cops not touch him, then the whole thing could have been avoided by the cops NOT TOUCHING HIM.
Again I ask, is there some policy I'm unaware of that says that the cops MUST have their hands physically on the guy? If not then the only reason these cops had for refusing to get their hands off of him was that they were the cops, he was the 'bad guy' and by George they were gonna make him do whatever they said, how they said, and by the means that they said.
From what I could see of the videos the kid was protesting the cops putting their hands on him, not the library rules. He was refusing to comply with the library rules, but not protesting them.
This reaction went against the goal. The goal was to get this kid out of the library, unless I missed something big somewhere? From what I read of the rules failure to comply could result in refusal to be allowed into the library. I don't recall tazering being one of the consequences mentioned.
Seems like if they let the guy leave and, once outside, the police had checked the kid out to verify his name and such, the library then could have followed its OWN POSTED REGULATIONS AND CONSEQUENCES and banned the guy from coming back in again, for failure to follow the rules.
This would have been appropriate and would have had the added benifit of following the regulations that were part of the school.