Daily Kos
Wednesday, November 22, 2006

It appears that the officer who was videotaped repeatedly tasering a student for being unable to stand up after being tasered has a history of inappropriately using excessive force:

In May 1990, he was accused of using his nightstick to choke someone who was hanging out on a Saturday in front of a UCLA fraternity. Kente S. Scott alleged that Duren confronted him while he was walking on the street outside the Theta Xi fraternity house.

Scott sued the university, and according to court records, UCLA officials moved to have Duren dismissed from the police force. But after an independent administrative hearing, officials overturned the dismissal, suspending him for 90 days.
...
In October 2003, Duren shot and wounded a homeless man he encountered in Kerckhoff Hall. Duren chased the man into a bathroom, where they struggled and he fired two shots.

And the really scary part: they've put this armed and violent crook back on patrol:

Duren ... was back on duty at the UCLA campus Monday night

That's just crazy -- an officer caught on tape using excessive force, with a history of such incidents, needs to be on some sort of administrative suspension pending the completion of a formal investigation, not put back onto campus with a gun.

Update:
The UCLA student newspaper has also looked into Officer Terrence Duren's past:

According to one court complaint presented in the trial, Duren allegedly woke a student sleeping in the study hall in Kerckhoff in August 1993, escorted him outside, slammed him against a wall, and handcuffed and arrested him.

The complaint also stated that on the way to the police station, Duren told the student, "For a while there I thought I was going to have to 'Rodney King' you."