Sadly, John Kerry Wasn't Tasered (But He Could Have Used the Electricity)

We’re suckers for taser gun stories. Like this one, from the AP:

A University of Florida student was Tasered and arrested after trying angrily and repeatedly to ask U.S. Senator John Kerry about the 2004 election and other subjects during a campus forum….

Videos of Monday’s incident posted on several Web sites show officers pulling Andrew Meyer, 21, away from the microphone after he asks Kerry about impeaching President Bush and whether he and Bush were both members of the secret society Skull and Bones at Yale University.

“He apparently asked several questions he went on for quite awhile then he was asked to stop,” university spokesman Steve Orlando said. “He had used his allotted time. His microphone was cut off, then he became upset.”

More discussion, plus video, after the jump.


Here’s what happened to Meyer after he was forcibly removed:

Meyer was arrested on charges of resisting an officer and disturbing the peace, according to Alachua County jail records, but the State Attorney’s Office had yet to make the formal charging decision. Police recommended charges of resisting arrest with violence, a felony, and disturbing the peace and interfering with school administrative functions, a misdemeanor.

Was this a case of police brutality? Might Andrew Meyer have a cause of action against the officers? Or was he just an annoyingly self-indulgent questioner who deserved to get zapped?
Here’s the video. You be the judge:

Student Arrested, Tasered at Kerry Event [AP via ABC News]
University of Florida student Tasered at Kerry forum [YouTube]
Earlier: ATL Practice Pointers: Don’t Taser the Client

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