On not standing up, after being grabbed and tortured

Cell phone videos show LAPD identifying fully with the ideological apparatus. More citizen-surveillance likely to result.

One shows LAPD pinning a man to the ground with a knee to the throat, and beating him repeatedly in the face, after the man claimed he couldn't breath. Another shows a handcuffed, shouting man, already locked in the back of an LAPD police cruiser being blasted with pepper spray directly in the face, apparently as punishment for being homeless, and for screaming.

A third, spell-binding video has UCLA LAPD using a Taser stun gun at least 5 times on an overworked and underslept Iranian student who had forgotten his library card and, apparently, did not very much appreciate being manhandled over it, in the library. (Or for that matter, being shot and then immediately commanded to "get up, or you'll get tased again," including after already being handcuffed. Students coming to his aid, as well as those asking for officer names and badge numbers, were likewise summarily threatened.) (Corrected from Urtext here.)

Update: Massive protests are planned today at both UCLA and UC Berkeley. There is a petition you may sign. And here is the UCPD wepage: you could email or call to tell them what you think.

Video (as of this morning the most popular on all of YouTUbe) and story link via the excellent lnc listserv.



* A person may be physically immobilized for 5-15 minutes after being tasered, a practice from which 148 people have died in the last six years.

Update: It occurs to me that as soon as the student starts screaming, the police recognize they are in public relations/control the situation territory. All this superfluous, hypocritical command to "stand up" is just so much mantric cover, just what they've been trained to do.

As Angela states, some of the apathetic students found by local media are equally, if not more horrifying.