According to a study published in the Lancet Medical Journal in 2001, a charge of three to five seconds can result in immobilization for five to 15 minutes, which would mean that Tabatabainejad could have been physically unable to stand when the officers demanded that he do so.
"It is a real mistake to treat a Taser as some benign thing that painlessly brings people under control," said Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney at the ACLU of Southern California.
"The Taser can be incredibly violent and result in death," Eliasberg said.
According to an ACLU report, 148 people in the United States and Canada have died as a result of the use of Tasers since 1999.
During the altercation between Tabatabainejad and the officers, bystanders can be heard in the video repeatedly asking the officers to stop and requesting their names and identification numbers. The video showed one officer responding to a student by threatening that the student would "get Tased too." At this point, the officer was still holding a Taser.
Such a threat of the use of force by a law enforcement officer in response to a request for a badge number is an "illegal assault," Eliasberg said.
"It is absolutely illegal to threaten anyone who asks for a badge - that's assault," he said.
Until tonight I hadn't watched the video of the taser incident. Its linked here. Its hard to watch. In fact, I didn't make it through and I was very angry for a while after seeing it. I actually don't recommend watching it.
These cops are tasering this kid and then demanding that he stand. They are demanding over and over again that he stand up and then tasering him when he refuses to stand. Its fucked up. Would you want to stand after getting electrocuted? Worse, they threaten to taser the other students that are watching the incident because they express concern with the situation. I do not understand how people can watch this video and not get that this is a bunch of guys who enjoy hurting people and have found a victim. How warped can you possibly be? What sort of authoritarian brain washing leads you to look at this and wonder whether or not it was justified?
