"Don't tase me bro" - Andrew Meyer Automaton

Sadly, taser means no muss, no fuss, no hassle

May 21, 2008
Bernie O'Neill, Yorkregion.com

The Yale Book of Quotations came out with its most memorable quote of 2007 that, interestingly, is about an object of controversy in Canada.

The expression is ‘Don’t tase me, bro’, as uttered by a 21-year-old undergrad at a presidential hopeful’s address in Florida. At the end of the question and answer period, university police decided they didn’t like his questions (they weren’t really questions — more like accusations) and moved in.

You can sense both the indignation and the fear in the young man’s voice, if you’ve ever seen the clip. On the one hand, he is thinking, this — allegedly — is a free country and I have every right to make statements at a political event without being muzzled by force.

And, secondly, please don’t send thousands of volts of electricity through my body.

Ever put your tongue on both prongs of a 9-volt battery? I did when I was about 12 and just the memory of it gives me shivers.

If I was in student Andrew Meyer’s position, I would be saying the same thing. Please, please, please, do not tase me. (I might have left out the bro.)

You can actually buy a T-shirt bearing the words, ‘Don’t tase me, bro’ on a very cool website, bustedtees.com, that has a lot of other funny and politically relevant stuff on there, too — although mostly American. And you can see the clip on youtube.

What’s interesting is that, if you type in the word taser (that’s an electric stun gun, in case you haven’t gathered that at this point) in the youtube search, all kinds of crazy and questionable uses of the increasingly popular people zappers (just call it “shock and awe”).

You start to wonder if this whole taser thing has gone too far.

It certainly seems to have in Canada. Last year, a Polish man who had become agitated and disoriented at the Vancouver airport was zapped with a taser by RCMP officers and died. He was tasered within minutes of them coming upon the scene.

More recently, a senior citizen in B.C. who had become confused and was holding a pocket knife was tasered by police. The man is 82. He was zapped three times with a stun gun while lying in his hospital bed, according to reports.

I mention his age because, before the advent of the taser, it would seem police had fewer options to subdue people. If the person represented an imminent threat to his life or someone else’s, they could shoot him, whack him with a billy club, wrestle him to the ground, maybe pepper spray him.

I would imagine before the advent of the taser, most 82-year-olds were simply talked to.

When I first heard left-leaning members of Toronto’s police services board waxing rhapsodically about tasers a few years back and how it would be so nice if police officers would just mildly electrocute people when trying to make an arrest or keep order instead of shooting them, I was skeptical.

Not because I suspected tasers would be used casually to zap any trouble maker. But because I never thought a police officer who felt his life or someone else’s was at risk was going to waste much time or take the chance of getting killed just to be a nice guy.

No, I suspect he would use the gun he was trained to use and had every right to use under the circumstances to save his own life or someone else’s. The taser? I thought it would end up left in the holster.

In fact, it seems to be the opposite. Use of the taser is not replacing use of the gun. It is replacing having to risk injury by tackling someone and wrestling them to the ground or calling for backup so a group of officers by sheer number could overpower someone.

It is being used to save time, as the comments would suggest from one officer in the zapping of the 82-year-old, a former heart bypass patient who needed oxygen to breathe. “We’ve got more important work to do,” he said. And that was that. Three zaps to the abdomen.

If you were tending to your lawn, it would be like someone inventing a weed whacker. There’s no more bending, tugging, sore backs or pulled muscles. It’s all done with this nifty electric gadget and it saves you a lot of time for other things.

It is one more weapon in the arsenal and, for now, they have the right to use it when they see fit.

Before we start equipping every police officer, security guard, bouncer and grade school hall monitor with tasers, perhaps we should be setting more clear guidelines about who can legally own them and how a taser can be legally fired.

If it was meant as a second-to-last resort, the final option before firing a gun at someone, it certainly is not being used that way. People’s lives, health and rights are being violated in the process.

"Don't Tase Me, Bro" tops '07 memorable quote list

December 19, 2007
Reuters

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Don't Tase Me, Bro," a phrase that swept the nation after a U.S. college student used it seeking to stop campus police from throwing him out of a speech by Sen. John Kerry, was named Wednesday as the most memorable quote of 2007.

Fred R. Shapiro, the editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, said the plea made by University of Florida student Andrew Meyer on September 17, accompanied by Meyer's screams as he was tased, beat out the racial slur that cost shock jock Don Imus his job and the Iranian president's declaration that his country does not have homosexuals.

Shapiro said Meyer's quote was a symbol of pop culture success. Within two days it was one of the most popular phrases on Google and one of the most viewed videos. It also showed up on ringtones and T-shirts.

Canadian uproar over Tasers mirrors U.S., with several recent deaths

November 26, 2007
The Canadian Press

WASHINGTON - When Florida student Andrew Meyer was stunned with a Taser gun this fall at a campus session with Senator John Kerry, the dramatic video footage made all the networks. And it re-ignited debate in the United States about the use and dangers of the brand-name guns that zap people with high-voltage electric shocks.

Now, with the deaths of four Americans who were tased in the last 10 days, there are new demands to ban them. All told, there have been six deaths in the United States since Robert Dziekanski died last month at Vancouver Airport in a highly contentious case that's provoked a national debate about the weapons in Canada.

That concern is mirrored south of the border. "People are paying attention," said Jason Disterhoft at Amnesty International U.S.A. "It seems like people are worried and rightly so."

If the issue has resurfaced as a top-of-mind for U.S. government officials, rights groups and cops, it has been prominent here for the last few years. Amnesty has consistently raised concern about the use of Tasers in routine law enforcement situations or as a weapon of first resort. The group has been calling on police departments to suspend use of Tasers or at least limit them to situations involving the threat of death or serious injury. Tasing someone who is not violent and poses no threat to himself or others constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, says Amnesty.

The United Nations Committee Against Torture singled out Tasers at a Geneva conference last Friday, agreeing that the most popular model caused so much pain that using it "constituted a form of torture." "At the least, we'd like to see law enforcement use it only when lethal force is the only alternative," said Disterhoft.

Meyer, for instance, was still posing questions to Kerry after his time ran out and he resisted attempts by university police to remove him. After yelling out: "Don't tase me, bro," he got a blast from the stun gun as he lay on the ground, with one arm handcuffed. Two of the policemen were placed on paid administrative leave and Meyer agreed to 18 months of probation to avoid criminal charges of resisting arrest.

In Utah, an officer recently tased a driver who refused to sign a speeding ticket. A patrol car's dashboard camera caught it on tape and the incident became popular on YouTube. The officer is under investigation, accused of being too quick to pull out the Taser.

Other recent U.S. cases have been far more grave, including the death Nov. 18 of 20-year-old Jarrel Grey, who died in Frederick, Md., after a sheriff's deputy tried to break up a late-night brawl.

Black leaders are calling for a ban on Tasers, at least until there's a clear policy on how they're used by cops. That's something police want as well, saying it's not right to send officers out to make split second decisions without proper guidelines and training.

Those vary significantly across the country among some 12,000 police departments that use Tasers.

"My sense is there is no cogent policy nationwide," said Rich Roberts at the International Union of Police Associations in Sarasota, Fla., which is developing a research project on Tasers. "I'm afraid the same thing may apply to training. My fear is too many departments may be (explaining) the technology and that's it." What cops need to know, said Roberts, is exactly where the Taser belongs in the "force continuum," so it will be used appropriately. But it should "absolutely" be part of the police arsenal, along with pepper spray, batons and guns, he said.

Since it isn't classified as a firearm, it's exempt from federal firearms requirement and regulations. There's still no agreement in the United States on whether Tasers, wihich release 50,000 volts of electricity, can actually kill or whether the victims had pre-existing conditions.

The manufacturer, Taser International of Scottsdale, Ariz., concedes on its website that the technology is not risk-free but the company says no deaths have been definitively linked to the product.

Dziekanski is recorded as the 18th person in Canada to die in recent years after being hit by a Taser, while Amnesty says 280 people have died since July 2001 in the United States, where the devices can also be used by civilians in many states. That works out to roughly the same rate of deaths per capita in both countries.

"Nobody really knows exactly why these people are dying," Amnesty executive director Larry Cox told CBS News. "It may be because they have a heart condition. It may be because they're on drugs. It may be because of some other factor that we don't know about. The important thing is, they are dying after they are Tasered. That cannot be denied, no matter how you spin the language."

Last month, Wake Forest University released an independent study of injuries associated with Tasers, saying they're relatively harmless and pose minimal risks. Dr. William Bozeman, a lead researcher, added the device isn't a "magical sort of thing that can't hurt anybody ever."

The U.S. Justice Department is expected to release a major report on Tasers next year. And some government officials are already hoping to replace it. The Homeland Security Department, for instance, is looking at creating a new non-lethal weapon called the LED Incapacitator.

It would use high-intensity light-emitting diodes to temporarily blind people and make them dizzy.

Debate heats up over US stun gun laws

September 24, 2007
Mark Simkin, ABC News

Get your "Don't tase me, bro!" t-shirt

The newest in trendy t-shirts is the "Don’t tase me, Bro!" design. The phrase references the recent taser attack on a University of Florida student at a John Kerry speaking event. "Don't tase me, bro!" was uttered by Andrew Meyer as he was pinned to the floor by six University of Florida police officers after he tried to exercise his right to free speech.


Buy it here.



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Senator Kerry's office issues statement re UF student tasered

Senator Kerry's office issued the statement below:

"In 37 years of public appearances, through wars, protests and highly emotional events, I have never had a dialogue end this way. 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. I hope that neither the student nor any of the police were injured. I regret enormously that a good healthy discussion was interrupted."

At his court hearing this morning, Andrew Meyer was ordered released on his own recognizance. He faces two charges: "resisting an officer with violence" and "disrupting a school assembly."

UF President Asks for Investigation into Taser Incident

September 18, 2007
First Coast News, Gainsville, Florida

The president of the University of Florida is asking for a full investigation into the incident at the town hall forum hosted by Senator John Kerry.

Campus police used tasers to arrest student Andrew Meyer when he refused to step away from a microphone.

Here is a copy of the letter to the university from president J. Bernard Machen.

To students, faculty, staff:

I have received a great deal of communication and input last night and this morning regarding the incident that occurred Monday at the conclusion of a town hall forum being held by Sen. John Kerry. The incident resulted in a student being tasered.

We are interested in learning what happened and are taking the following immediate steps to ensure the university utilizes best practice protocols:

University of Florida Police Chief Linda Stump has requested the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conduct a formal investigation into the arrest of UF student Andrew Meyer. An independent review such as this will make sure the results are objective and impartial. Chief Stump's priority is to ensure that the public remains confident in the department's ability to keep the campus safe.

Two officers involved in the incident have been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

We plan to assemble a panel of faculty and students to review our police protocols, our management practices and the FDLE report to come up with a series of recommendations for the university.

Administrators and police officials plan to analyze the incident and conduct an internal review and will consider changing protocols in response to this incident, if necessary.

Finally, as is standard procedure, the State Attorney's Office will review the charges brought against Mr. Meyer. We have communicated with the State Attorney and understand he plans to expedite his review.

I will talk about the incident and answer questions at a news conference scheduled for 2 p.m. in Emerson Alumni Hall.

Sincerely,
J. Bernard Machen

A few hours later, the university president met with reporters and said the university considers it "fundamental" to provide a setting where "civil discourse" can happen.

He added that "the incident that occurred yesterday was regretful for us because civil discourse and dialogue did not occur."

UF student tasered during John Kerry speech

University of Florida (College of Journalism and Communications) student Andrew Meyer was tasered today at a John Kerry speech at the university. Andrew Meyer was removed from the microphone after asking several questions of John Kerry and was forcibly taken down by at least five police officers. He was already on the floor of the auditorium and surrounded by police when one used a taser on him.

To see what the police look like in the throes of excited delirium, see the video footage at You Tube.

Andrew Meyer was charged with "disrupting a public event."

This one's not over - not by a long shot.

Reminds me of the incident in Brattleboro, Vermont at the end of July, when two peaceful activists were tased by police during a non-violent protest.