Kerry: Didn't know cops were Tasering student

Frank James
Baltimore Sun
Tuesday September 18, 2007

Sen. John Kerry has issued a statement about the incident at the University of Florida yesterday in which Andrew Meyer, a 21-year-old student was Tasered by campus police who thought the histrionic young man had overstayed his welcome.

Here's Kerry's statement:

"In 37 years of public appearances, through wars, protests and highly emotional events, I have never had a dialogue end this way. I believe I could have handled the situation without interruption, but again I do not know what warnings or other exchanges transpired between the young man and the police prior to his barging to the front of the line and
their intervention. I asked the police to allow me to answer the question and was in the process of answering him when he was taken into custody. I was not aware that a taser was used until after I left the building. I hope that neither the student nor any of the police were injured. I regret enormously that a good healthy discussion was interrupted."

Meanwhile, Tom Nolan, a criminal-justice professor and former cop who teaches at Boston University, has his own views of the incident which were e-mailed to reporters by the university's media-relations office. Nolan doesn't side with the campus police.

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“The deployment of an immobilizing, less-lethal weapon in an auditorium crowded with students to bring an unruly student (who was being arrested for a misdemeanor charge) under control, by no fewer than six police officers, is a shocking and dangerous breach of police protocol. Aside from the obvious fact that a university campus is no place for such weapons, and that campus police officers should not have such weapons at their disposal (and no, it would have done little good at Virginia Tech), this incident constitutes an outrageous display of overreaction brought about by inexperience and a complete lack of oversight and control. The cops were more out of control than the unruly student here and six cops should easily have been able to take this student into custody. Looks like another scandal for the U of F campus PD (remember the botched frat boy rape case of 1999)”

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