Posts

Posted on

UCLA Student Tasered for Not Showing ID in Library

fuck ucla cops fuclaUpdated below

He wouldn’t show his ID, and he wouldn’t leave on his own. So THEY SHOT HIM WITH A STUN GUN!

23-year-old Mostafa Tabatabainejad is my hero-of-the week.

The arrest was recorded on another student’s camera phone and showed Tabatabainejad screaming while on the floor of the computer lab. The video also showed the student shouting, “Here’s your Patriot Act, here’s your [fuckin’] abuse of power…”Here’s the cell-phone vid of the incident posted to YouTube:

< ---LATimes.com photo gallery – Friday protest.

Here’s the AP account from Thursday:

“As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building,” [UCLA Police Department Spokeswoman Nancy] Greenstein said…. Tabatabainejad encouraged others at the library to join his resistance. When a crowd began to gather they used the stun gun on him.

Click here for the Daily Bruin article.
taser gun rally LAist UCLA
Henry posted photos at LAist from Friday’s rally like this —>

And more suspended-in-disbelief commentary from Martini Republic, LAObserved, and UCLA LJ forum

UPDATES:

From the L.A. Times 11/21: Terrence Duren, an 18-year veteran of the UCLA Police Department, tased Tabatabainejad five times. A 2001 UCLA officer of the year, Duren has been the subject of other use-of-force complaints and previously recommended for dismissal. In one previous incident, Duren shot and wounded a homeless man in a University building, a case that went to trial. Duren has stated all of the past allegations against him regarding police misconduct and use of excessive force were investigated by the UCPD and proven false.[8] Prior to joining the UCPD in the late 1980s, Duren was fired from the Long Beach Police Department.

I like Reuters’ angle on the issue, including an interview with the founder of Cop Watch LA.

Keith Olbermann discusses with Daily Bruin‘s Sara Taylor here.

FOUR NEW VIDEOS
The Daily News reports:

four new videos surfaced online Thursday, showing Los Angeles police clubbing two young people as they videotaped the arrest of a third during a [July 8 Minutemen rally] in Hollywood.

Welcome Boing-ers, Cory and others dig up a bit more dirt here. The Small Print Project is still in effect — help me out here.

Posted on

RIAApe Me… Again

IS the RIAA working hard behind the scenes to pass Audio Flag legislation to plug the analog hole during Congress’ lame duck session?

The *battle* is on and earlier this week, the RIAA’s Cary Sherman called BS on the Consumer Electronics Assn’s Digital Freedom docket in this op-ed published on CNET.

CEA President Gary Shapiro fired back almost immediately with this response.

I don’t trust either of these guys, quite frankly, and wonder what everybody else thinks about these association-types apparent attempt to duke it out, not to mention, Microsoft’s consent to sellout to labels for each Zune (despite fair use) sold and whether, in the end any of these efforts will lead us in any direction towards digital freedom for both consumers and creators.

Charles wrote in to Small Print Project:

…Seems like the RIAA is looking to make a push to pass the Audio Flag bill during the lame duck session. This will kill any hopes of having a digital radio recorder, much like Tivo, which companies like XM and Sirius are behind. Tonight the RIAA is sponsoring a tech demo/concert/open bar at the Russell Senate building. Special interests hard at work?

I can’t find anything at quick glance on this, but please — SOMEBODY crash it and report back!


Click to order RIAA toilet paper

More on the Sherman spin:
— /. thread
— Mistaken Goal posts of last week’s “revision of a white paper released in 2003 entitled ‘Background Discussion of Copyright Law and Potential Liability for Students Engaged in P2P File Sharing on University Networks.'”
— Ars Technica

Originally posted November 16, 2006 at Set-Top Cop blog.

Posted on

This Day in Media

— Jay Rosen introduced and discussed NewAssignment.net — “an experiment in open-source journalism” — at Harvard’s Berkman Center (video)

— Al Jazeera International finally launches its English-language broadcast. It’s U.S. distribution is quite thin, having been turned down by Comcast, however, it will be available online at VDC.com and english.aljazeera.net.

— Len Downie is the latest to announce layoffs and consolidation as the state of the job market circa my impending graduation from J-school begins to eerily mirror the quasi- market circa my high school graduation in 1993 (and how things changed with 2 years of Net proliferation). An ONLINE Journalism major, I’m not nearly as concerned as my colleagues.

— Free Press and the Center on Media & Democracy released their second report on the use of Fake News and Video News Reports in mainstream media.

— Amanda Congdon of Rocketboom fame is goin’ Disney — she’s signed on to blog at ABCNews. Just the other day she announced a contract with HBO (check int’v w/ BizWeek). Hopefully her lovely vidblogging wit will transfer to print better than Mark Halperin‘s (of the Note) personality lame-ified ABC News Now appearances.

Tonight at a presentation of a soon-to-be-release study of Media Usage Gap by the Annenberg School for Communication and Ketchum, it was revealed that “it’s all about the influencers,” 18-30 year olds digest an incrediubly broad array of media, from social networking sites to print newspapers, etc… and blogs are not as infouential on a broad scale as many think, according to the study, of course. More on all that later.

Lots of deeper blogging to come as the past few days have included BarCamp LA 2 and encounters with ‘net early adopters/enablers/activists John Gilmore and John Perry Barlow… .