Report criticizes use of Taser on UCLA student -
Even with use of force policies that are "unduly permissive," a UCLA police officer violated department rules when he repeatedly shocked a student with an electric Taser gun last fall during a confrontation captured on video and posted on the Internet, according to a report released Wednesday.
Los Angeles police accountability expert Merrick Bobb found that the decision to use the Taser on student Mostafa Tabatabainejad was "unnecessary, avoidable and excessive."
The findings are at odds with an earlier inquiry by UCLA Police Chief Karl Ross, who cleared Officer Terrence Duren and two colleagues of any wrongdoing.
Tabatabainejad, then a 23-year-old senior at UCLA, was in the campus library one night last November when a security guard asked him to provide identification during a routine check to make sure everyone in the library after 11 p.m. was a student or otherwise authorized to be there.
Tabatabainejad, a U.S. citizen of Iranian descent, refused repeated requests to provide his identification, explaining later that he thought he was being singled out because of his Middle Eastern appearance.
In an ensuing confrontation with university police, Tabatabainejad was shocked at least three times with a Taser when he failed to get on his feet and walk out of the library as officers demanded.
Much of the encounter was captured by students with cellphones or digital cameras. Some of the footage was posted on www.YouTube.comand drew viewers from around the world. After student protests, a flood of angry e-mails and calls from concerned parents, then-Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams asked Bobb to conduct an independent review.
Bobb's 77-page report, titled "A Bad Night at Powell Library: The Events of November 14, 2006," was critical of Tabatabainejad and campus police.
The student has filed a federal lawsuit against UCLA, the police and several officers over the incident, contending that his civil rights were violated and that officers failed to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act. The lawsuit states that Tabatabainejad has bipolar disorder.
"This story has no heroes," the introduction reads. Bobb faulted Tabatabainejad for failing to identify himself in the first place and the police for a response that was "substantially out of proportion with the provocation."
