Hello All,
I'm new to the site - a longtime reader, but this is my first diary. Originally I had planned on writing something rather anecdotal about my experiences in college talking with my peers about the current political scenario and exploring the candidates from my generation's perspective, but tonight something rather dramatic happened at my (recently-transferred-from) school during Senator John Kerry's scheduled speech.
First, go here and view the video, and then check out more after the jump.
Now I should add a disclaimer here. Andrew Meyer lived literally three doors down the hall from me in 2004 in Rawlings Hall at the University of Florida. I would describe myself as a liberal, but Andrew made the entire liberal population at UF seem like the supporting cast of "The Scarlet Letter" when he would get on a tangent. During election night, between discussing how horrible the world was going to become on commercial breaks, he would furiously find any academically supported reason to hope that somehow Kerry had REALLY WON, like Gore had. Unfortunately, the revolution never came, and Andrew ended up getting more into online blogging and writing for The Independent Alligator, the local student-run paper.
My purpose in laying this out is that I sympathize with most of the issues Mr. Meyer cares about, though I have always been a bit more pragmatic in my approaches. That being said, I recently moved away to Arizona, falling out of touch with my former hall-mate and the goings-on of his world. Of course, in today's technologically advanced state, news travels quickly, and I was just informed of the events and knew that this was the place to post about them.
To summarize, tonight John Kerry made a scheduled speech at the University of Florida, which was followed up by a Q&A series. I had several friends who still go to UF tell me about what happened, and the newspaper article sums it up quite well. Andrew approached the microphone (some say he was out of turn, others said that he was ignored originally), and Kerry allowed his question. He began to ask why Kerry conceded the election to Bush when there were allegations of voter fraud on election day and the count was so close, and then went on to ask why Bush hadn't been impeached yet.
Things took a turn for the worse when he began asking about Skull & Bones and Kerry's involvement with the "secret society." I don't presume to know Andrew's intent for bringing this up, but I imagine he was linking Bush's failed policies with the Democratic Party's seeming unwillingness to stand against it.
Anyway, as the video clearly shows on the site, the police suddenly grabbed Andrew's arms and tried to take him from the building. Andrew resisted, questioning why he was being so forcefully removed, as Kerry shouted over the raucus to allow him to "answer the question." (I should add here that I thought Kerry handled the situation well considering the scenario in my opinion). The police continued to try and get him to leave the premises, but he continued to refuse, shouting over them and pleading as to why he was being forced to leave. After being wrestled to the ground but still demanding why he was being detained, a police officer pointed a taser gun at him to which he responded "Please don't tase me" (which is audible in the video). The officer tazed him anyway, causing Andrew to very vocally shout in pain. They then removed him and arrested him, charging him with "disrupting a public event."
The question that should be on all of our minds is, why was Meyer silenced? His question was allowed for a minute or two before he was so suddenly forced to leave, which points to a larger concern: it wasn't that Meyer asked a question out of turn, it's the direction his question took that was considered "disruptive." If this doesn't infringe on our rights and limit our discourse, I'm not really sure what does.
Similarly, and even more importantly:
After the incident, Capt. Jeff Holcomb of the UPD said Meyer had been charged with disrupting a public event and placed in the Alachua County Jail. Holcomb said there would be an investigation into whether the officers used force appropriately, adding that employing a Taser gun would only be justified in a case where there was a threat of physical harm to officers.
Meyer is clearly on the ground, surrounded by officers, and pleading to not be tazered when the police officer uses his weapon. I don't really see how anyone could imply that Meyer was physically threatening the officers in the position he was in.
I certainly never condone resisting arrest, nor do I move to endorse Meyer's views with this diary. However, I certainly intend to bring public attention to what is very clearly a case of police brutality and misconduct during a time in which the questions we ask are more important than ever. This incident happened tonight, and we should take the opportunity to make sure that tomorrow the public is aware of this ridiculous abuse of power.
EDIT:
Here's a longer, much better video shot from the front and showing his entire question.
http://www.youtube.com/...
And another:
http://video.nbc6.net/...
UPDATE:
I've been reading over some of the comments and intend on clarifying some information for the sake of the discussion. I have to put the baby to sleep and finish an assignment first but I'll update this within a couple hours. Also I'm going to do my best to get in touch with Andrew and give him the opportunity to add his two cents.