I have read through all of the thread and I have to go with my gut instinct, particularly after watching that video. I feel it was abuse of power.
The student said clearly he was in the process of leaving, and asked them to not touch him, repeatedly. He also yelled out that he had a medical condition and after that was repeatedly tasered regardless. Despite most of you saying that it doesn't affect you badly to be tasered, I'm not sure you know what that guy may have felt. It's his body, not yours. He must have also been shit scared of what it could potentially do to him, if he didn't know if it could harm him or not. When he was tasered, his whole body seemed to be contorting, and he screamed. You think he was acting up? I would give him the benefit of doubt.
He could have stood up after that first tasering, but would you have? Honestly in the middle of the stress of that situation, it's anybody's guess how any of us might react. Mostly everyone knows what its like to be in a tense situation and lose it, only to think back and realize you could have done things differently.
I still think that despite his non-compliance, he was defiant because he felt he was in the right and being abused of, and that it WAS excessive use of force. What got me also was the way the police officers refused to give their badge number when requested. It seeems to me that they made some really bad choices, and then were lamely trying to protect themselves somehow.
What a shameful situation, it made my blood run cold when I saw the footage.
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Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.
Fernando Pessoa, 1918
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