Daaaaave

http://www.donttasemebro.com/

haha

Neil Purvis

This guy's better

Daaaaave

Take it from Andrew Meyer, the University of Florida student hit with the Taser shot heard around the world via YouTube: Did the cops do anything wrong?

“I am not mad at you guys,” the police report [pdf] quoted him as saying in the ride to jail. “You didn’t do anything wrong, you were just trying to do your job.”

Does that mean that Mr. Meyer felt that he was simply doing his job as well? Friends of his told The Gainesville Sun that despite his reputation as a prankster and his apparent flair for self-promotion, exhibited on his personal Web site, TheAndrewMeyer.com, the dramatic exit from Senator John Kerry’s appearance on campus “was not any sort of publicity stunt.”

But one of the officers said that “his demeanor completely changed once the cameras were not in sight,” shifting in a matter of minutes from the kicking-and-screaming coiner of the new catchphrase “Don’t Tase me, bro” to “laughing and being lighthearted.” Then, they say, he asked them whether the news media would be on hand when he arrived at the police station.

Moreover, one of the widely circulated videos of the incident was filmed with his own camera. As he pushed his way toward the microphone to put his questions to Senator Kerry, he handed his camera to Clarissa Jessup, a student he didn’t know, and asked her to record him.
Then, just as his diatribe was heating up, he turned to Ms. Jessup and said, “Are you taping this? Do you have this? You ready?,” according to the police report.

Mr. Meyer has been released from police custody and has yet to be formally charged with either resisting arrest or disturbing the peace. Two officers involved in the incident have been placed on leave pending an investigation of their conduct in the incident.

While the state attorney’s office tries to make up its mind what to do, Florida students and other Facebookers are continuing to debate whether Mr. Meyer’s rights were violated.

For an interesting discussion on whether he should’ve been ejected (it may have been his mention of a sexual act, not a secret society, that prompted the heave-ho) and whether what he did amounted to resisting arrest, check out this forum, which requires registration.

If nothing else, the episode left Senator Kerry looking aloof, a criticism lobbed at him regularly during the 2004 campaign. As the incident unfolded, he tried to use his microphone to lighten the mood, seemingly unaware of the seriousness of the situation. Later, he said that he had not been aware until afterward that the student had been shocked with a Taser.

And while even Mr. Meyer’s friends concede that he unraveled a bit during his on-mike, on-camera rant, the senator on the receiving end of the rant said he regretted “enormously” that “a good healthy discussion” was cut short.

Helarxe

See? Love and laughs all around, a couple million hits on his webpage (I hope he's got adsense), and humanity is another bit more eroded by the people who cried fascism because of this.

US ARSENAL

only in america haha

Fat Bhoy Tim

Yeah, coppers here can't afford tasers

msteuk

Wow, you're a moron.

GerdMüller

Only because he is a attention whore which was clear from the start i still think this case ozzes fascism. Love and laughs...no sir...

bflaff

TBF, if I was a cop about to get reamed and suspended for tasering some out of control putz, I'd do everything I could to make it seem like he was provoking the cops on purpose, and just after some notoriety and publicity.

And if some goon just tasered me, I doubt I'd spend the ride to the pokey trying to kick his teeth in. That's how you get a black eye and the full body cavity search. Best to calm down, appear normal, and hope the cops are through with the rough stuff.

As for taping himself, I don't see anything sinister in that either. Lots of people would consider asking a question of a US Senator and near-President to be a big deal, and a unique addition to one's facebook page. It doesn't mean he was planning something that would play on CNN all week. It beggars' belief that this kid would know ahead of time that he could provoke police into tasering him in spectacular fashion just by being obnoxious in front of a mic, and then do it to get himself some notoriety. People *are* that stupid, but this kid doesn't appear to be some "Jackass" wannabe.

He's a douche, and things got out of hand. Both sides screwed up.

GerdMüller

I dont like the idea of cops having tasers at all, because they use their gun only for self protection and will have to think about the consequences when using them (man dead). With a taser its like: "Well i only tasered him..." It is used much to often, as kind o "diciplinary measure", which it shouldnt be, because thats basically torture.