OK, this isn't good. I am seriously having flashbacks to the Ohio State game in 2005. You know, the one where riot police maced students trying to rush the field? I was in the third row of the student section, and there are few times in my life I've ever been more scared or outraged.
Well, it turns out, police just seem to like to take out college students whose threats to public safety are questionable at best.
A rather obnoxious student was carried away from the microphone at the University of Florida yesterday, after trying just a little too hard to get in a few last questions to Sen. John Kerry. When the kid (who is, admittedly, an idiot) flailed around in the officers' grasp, they made the genius decision to haul him off and Taser him. Yes, they sent 50,000 volts of electric current through his body because he was being a little jerk and hogging the microphone.
The kicker? You can hear Kerry in the background protesting his arrest, saying in vain that he would like to answer the student's "very important question." He's practically begging the police to let this poor dude go.
Here's the thing: I'm sure this guy was being a royal pain and that if he continued to refuse to leave the stage, he should have been removed. I'm not sure if asking a few extra questions warranted an immediate removal, but either way, it's the university's call. But Tasering? Really? I've watched episodes of Cops devoted entirely to this method of deterrence, and it's pretty funny to see completely deranged and violent criminals drop and shake around as if they got hit with a body-binder curse (note: I will reference Harry Potter, and you will like it).
These people are seriously dangerous and would likely hurt themselves, the cops or other people if they weren't taken down. This kid, however, wanted nothing but to put in his extra two cents, and his "resisting arrest" was hardly endangering anyone.
I realize that college kids can be obnoxious. Dare I say it, but we even have a penchant for breaking the law -- especially when it comes to victimless crimes. But I highly doubt most of us have cop-maiming aspirations or that our overzealous challenges to authority really deserve the brute force they're often met with. Manic civic engagement and a race to grab a piece of turf grass don't really need as much police attention as say, the murder rate in Philadelphia.
This ain't the '60s anymore, but don't make us start putting flowers in guns.