University of Florida student tasered.

[Mr. Brooks]

Student Arrested, Tasered at Kerry Event

By TRAVIS REED – 37 minutes ago

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A university student with a history of taping his own practical jokes was Tasered by campus police and arrested after loudly and repeatedly trying to ask U.S. Sen. John Kerry questions during a campus forum.

Andrew Meyer, 21, spent a night in jail before his release from jail Tuesday morning on his own recognizance. He had no comment when he left. His attorney, Robert Griscti, did not return messages seeking comment.

Videos of the Monday night incident, posted on several Web sites and played repeatedly on television news, show University of Florida police officers pulling Meyer away from the microphone after he asks Kerry about impeaching President Bush and whether he and Bush were both members of the secret society Skull and Bones at Yale University.

University spokesman Steve Orlando said Meyer was asked to leave the microphone after his allotted time was up. Meyer can be seen refusing to walk away and getting upset that the microphone was cut off.

As two officers take Meyer by the arms, Kerry, D-Mass., can be heard saying, "That's all right, let me answer his question."

Audience members applaud, and Meyer struggles for several seconds as up to four officers try to remove him from the room. Meyer screams for help and tries to break away from officers with his arms flailing at them, then is forced to the ground and officers order him to stop resisting.

As Kerry tells the audience he will answer the student's "very important question," Meyer yells at the officers to release him, crying out, "Don't Tase me, bro," just before he is shocked by the Taser. He is then led from the room, screaming, "What did I do?"

Meyer was arrested on charges of resisting an officer and disturbing the peace, according to Alachua County jail records, but the State Attorney's Office had yet to make the formal charging decision. Police recommended charges of resisting arrest with violence, a felony, and disturbing the peace and interfering with school administrative functions, a misdemeanor.

University President J. Bernard Machen issued a statement Tuesday saying he requested the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the arrest. Officials said it would determine whether the officers used an appropriate level of force.

Machen called the situation "regretful" in an afternoon news conference and said two officers involved in the incident were placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the probe.

"We're absolutely committed to having a safe environment for our faculty and our students so that a free exchange of ideas can occur," Machen said.

Kerry said Tuesday he regretted that a healthy discussion was interrupted and that he never had a dialogue end that way in 37 years of public appearances. He also said he hoped neither the student nor police were injured.

"Whatever happened, the police had a reason, had made their decision that there was something they needed to do. Then it's a law enforcement issue, not mine," he told The Associated Press in Washington.

Meyer has his own Web site and it contains several "comedy" videos that he appears in. In one, he stands in a street with a sign that says "Harry Dies" after the latest Harry Potter book was released. In another, he acts like a drunk while trying to pick up a woman in a bar.

The site also has what is called a "disorganized diatribe" attributed to Meyer that criticizes the Iraq war, the news media for not covering the conflict enough and the American public for paying too much attention to celebrity news.

In my opinion he got what he deserved.

[Guest macho999]

with his arms flailing at them,

I can't quit laughing about that part. Arms flailing. I can just picture it in my mind. He probably has that college liberal male affliction of talking like a castrati as well, it's like an epidemic.

Anyone else ever notice how feminine these guys sound? It's like they heard some gay guys talking and decided to emulate that.

And that's another thing, the gay voice. Does that just come naturally or is it put on? I've always wondered if there are guys that talk normally their whole lives then "realize" they are gay or however it comes about and all of a sudden they've got a whole new voice.

[jgrauman]

i would have to see the video, but from the report here, seems a little excessive. Kerry said it was okay and he would answer the question. had they let him finish his questioning and let kerry answer, this would never had been an issue, but again, i would have to see the video to see if the kid was being an idiot

[SkWaShDeM]

i would have to see the video, but from the report here, seems a little excessive. Kerry said it was okay and he would answer the question. had they let him finish his questioning and let kerry answer, this would never had been an issue, but again, i would have to see the video to see if the kid was being an idiot

Apparently, he was just being very direct and heated in asking his questions. When the cops started to escort him out, it looked like he wasn't very happy about it and wasn't going quietly, or cooperatively. It looked like he was trying to get away from the two cops frog-marching him out of the room. Resisting arrest and inciting a riot though? Nope.

If you made me ask Kerry questions, I'd probably get a little excited and blunt too, mostly because I'd finally be able to ask the man where I can find the puppet strings that make him flip-flop so impressively.

[creeky]

To quote Eddie Murphy in "Trading Places"...

"May I suggest using your night stick officer."

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Sorry he resisted and acted irrational... I'm not sure dude

was even tasered. Couldn't see it in the video.

[Guest tjbert47]

i would have to see the video, but from the report here, seems a little excessive. Kerry said it was okay and he would answer the question. had they let him finish his questioning and let kerry answer, this would never had been an issue, but again, i would have to see the video to see if the kid was being an idiot

He got what he asked for.

Tom in TN

[creeky]

Here is another view with them taking him into the hall and talking to him...

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3ec_1190097717

[Guest David Waldrip]

This video shows the first part of the "exchange".

[ame]

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David

[fury2neon]

Couldn't they have just tasered Kerry to get him to shut up...

Now that is something I would like to see on video...

[towerclimber37]

I saw the video..... In my opinion, the police had no reason to grab the guy in the first place. If Kerry said he would answer the question then no big deal...instead, 3 goons come from behind (and yes, I refer to the LEO's as GOONS) and grab the guy.

Its pretty much along the lines of what went on in Manassas, except that the police in Manassas weren't stupid enough to escalate beyond being pricks and pushing people around in a professional capacity (thats the ONLY smart thing they did that night in my opinion).

I will admit that after they grabbed him, he resisted. there is the point where he broke the law..but if I were nit picking, what gives the police the power to just grab people that aren't doing anything wrong?

is it me or is that abuse of power?

[Mark@Sea]

I think we might end up disagreeing on this one...

If Kerry had spoken up sooner to "allow the question", fine. But once you're under arrest, the debate takes place somewhere else. Lawdog mentions that in one of the several videos, the student elbows a cop in the throat after he's outside.

Now, somebody elbows me in the throat, and I reach down to my batbelt and come upt with a TAZER - thats' restraint...

[jgrauman]

After reviewing the evidence i stand by my original statement. the cops never should have stepped up in the first place. he's out of time so lets go grab him up? sure AFTER the cops grab him he begins to resist and then it escilates from there. and kerry says, "that's alright, let me answer his question" after they cut off the microphone and before the cops laid a hand on him. somebody didn't like the questions he was asking so they cut the mic off? then the cops begin to escort him out? shouldn't have ever happened, kerry may be an idiot, but he's a professional politician that can handle himself in the face of a few blunt questions from a 21 year old college kid. they should have let him handle it from the debate side. not sure about those that think the kid got what he deserved, this isn't a police state, we do have a right to confront the politicians we ALLOW to speak for us. they work for us, not the other way around. if they do something we don't like then we should be doing the escorting out.

[Smith]

He wasn't "confronting" politicians with "tough" questions, he was being an idiot. From other reports he is a "Jackass" kinda guy who pulls a lot of stupid pranks with his buddies. In fact, I heard "Jackass" has contacted him about being on their show. Just watch the video.

He got what he probably should have gotten long ago. IMO

[jgrauman]

He wasn't "confronting" politicians with "tough" questions, he was being an idiot.

I thought he asked some pretty good questions and would have loved to hear Kerry's answers.

[towerclimber37]

still, there is a right way and a wrong way to do things.

If a police officer orders me to cease and desist I will do so, unless they're blatantly abusing their positions as police officers and acting like thugs.

In this instance I think the kids' a jackass..but that doesn't deserve a tazing.

now..when he elbows the cop in the throat...THAT deserves not a tazing, but a beatdown with a baton.

[Mark@Sea]

Just saw another version of the video (the wonders of satellite)....

Hey, if you fight the cops, break free, start running (toward a US Senator) and get tazed, well, be thankful.

This guy reminds me of those kids in supermarkets that lie on their backs, kick and scream because they can't have the cereal they want.

This isn't a first amendment issue, it's a behaviour issue. His behaviour was unacceptable. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't dealing with his parents.

Tazing effects disappear as soon as the current is cut, unless there is an unusual medical problem pre-existing. Nothing magic about it, it is just low amperage (on the order of 2 milliamps) current. It isn't pleasant (and I've taken some pretty good shocks), but it isn't meant to be. If they'd used 'other' methods of control, he'd be getting out of the hospital in a couple weeks....

On the other hand, think what would be said about the cops right now if they'd gotten a baton lock on him, maybe dislocated his arm or broke his wrist, and frog-marched him out on national TV.

"Don't taze me, bro'" - what a dumbass. Did he expect them to act like his parents and put him in time out?

[bteague2]

Just on a side note, I heard "don't taze me bro" multiple times all around campus and I saw a group of people huddled around a computer watching it over and over