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FACT: There have been over 80 taser deaths in the U.S. since 1999.
I attend a lot of political speeches, and there are frequently such protestors and disruptions. One would have expected that the police/security should have met prior to a lecture by someone as polarinzing as Senator Kerry, to discuss a strategy for handling such disruptions.
Kerry, and most public speakers are generally adept at handling hecklers. It appeared he was ready to start addressing the questions, but the police/security were already trying to remove the questioner, which only exacerbated the situation.
This made it into a free speech issue, as far as the questioner and his supporters are concerned.
Obviously this individual was worked up and anit-authoritarian. The police used force right from the get go, when it may have been possible to defuse the issue more peacefully.
The heckler strikes me as the type that would have gone on harranguing Kerry, regardless of what he said, and at that point maybe he should have been escorted out. I believe more people would have been supportive of the police in that instance. I believe he would have lost a lot of his emotional piss and vinegar after Kerry started answering his questions.
I'm also surprised that they didn't hustle him all of the way out of the room, but instead pounced on him at the back of the auditorium. That could have led to a far worse crowd control situation, as evidenced by the reaction of one girl near the end of the video.
The fact that no charges were placed against the individual is not surprising. How he asked his question, and the disruption he caused was deplorable, but he only made himself look bad in doing so - that is not a criminal act warranting arrest. A person with a subdued approach could have asked the same question and not much would have been made of it.
In the end, I think the police used excessive force, and had no apparent reason to use a potentially lethal weapon such as a taser gun.
ADG
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