09/18/2007
John Kerry Releases Statement on Florida Taser Incident
Senator John Kerry released a statement this afternoon about the unfortunate incident at the University of Florida, in which student Andrew Meyer was was pulled from a microphone by police and led away before being tackled and tasered in front of an auditorium full of students. Meyer was in the process of asking Kerry a series of questions.
Said Kerry: "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 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 responding 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."
Background
University of Florida Student Tasered at John Kerry Event [tr]
Posted 2:15 PM EST by Andy in Florida, John Kerry, Law Enforcement, News | Permalink
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Nice enough, but kinda lame.
Being tasered was absolutely horrifying. This is America, and he has the right to ask uncomfortable questions to elected officials. I hope he sues the pants off that place.
Posted by: Brian | Sep 18, 2007 2:19:53 PM
Lame?
Spineless. While I would truly prefer him over our present state of affairs, it strikes me how weak his moral fiber is...way to stick to the middle, John. Don't make waves.
Posted by: Papa Tony | Sep 18, 2007 2:24:05 PM
Kerry's press statement is fairly decent, obviously from a very smart politician. Some kind of exchange with police did occur before Meyer rushed the mic (cutting in front of the line). That was not on tape. How in the world can people pass judgment on the police based on some jumpy incomplete amateur video? There was indeed more to this than we are seeing.
Posted by: Ian | Sep 18, 2007 2:25:41 PM
Who can take seriously a Jo-Ke!
Posted by: Rafael | Sep 18, 2007 2:26:10 PM
Yes, Kerry would be better than what we have now, WHO wouldn't be?
We'll never know for certain if the results would have been different had he demonstrated in 2004 that his balls weren't shot off in Vietnam, but he didn't and for that I will never forgive him. I wish he would retire from politics entirely and just go away.
Posted by: Leland Frances | Sep 18, 2007 2:34:40 PM
Way to take a stand against police brutality there, Kerry.
What a pathetic loser. No wonder Bush walked all over him.
Posted by: Roscoe | Sep 18, 2007 2:41:37 PM
Weak. Man, where is the fire that once raged in this man's belly? I suppose this is what happens when you become part of the "establishment" Kerry spent so many years fighting against. Sad that he's lost so much principal and plays it safe like this.
Posted by: Mike | Sep 18, 2007 2:42:13 PM
Leland Frances, I agree with you 100%.
Posted by: soulbrotha | Sep 18, 2007 2:42:51 PM
So basically he released a statement in which he says absolutely nothing.
Posted by: JLS | Sep 18, 2007 3:12:05 PM
How could he claim he was UNAWARE tat the kid was being tazered? It is clear on one of the videos taking from the front row that you can not only hear him scream, "I'm being tazered!!" You can even hear a young girl in front saying "Stop Tazering him!!!"
So disturbing!
Posted by: Jeffrey Christman | Sep 18, 2007 3:17:41 PM
Kerry is such a tool!
The kid is screaming at the top of his lungs in an auditorium, "Don't taser me bro! Don't taser me bro!" Followed by the blood curdling scream of someone being tasered.
Later Kerry said, "I actually did vote for the use of the taser before I voted against it."
Posted by: Mitch | Sep 18, 2007 3:26:36 PM
Indeed...ball-less wonder. This time I rewatched the video and the clip was from an entirely different perspective, clearly noting Meyer's frustration and appeal for help. (Later, in the first clip I saw, I did see the female police officer making a very concerted effort to get him to calm down outside the auditorium). However, as he's being dragged from the room, Kerry barely has enough wind in him to mutter, "folks...let's...calm...dowwwwnnnn." What a shitlick.
Where is the footage of Meyer supposedly barging to the front of the line? If that were shown, I believe people would have a much different opinion of what occurred, especially regarding the police response, but still, Kerry had MORE than ample opportunity to defuse the situation and he did ZERO. Total lameass. That being said, the high school kid that tagged McCain had more brains than Meyer's bull-in-a-China shop approach.
Posted by: FizziekruntNT | Sep 18, 2007 3:36:43 PM
I love the part where he's outside screaming that the police are going to hand him over to "the government" and they'll "kill him".
He's a journalism major, of course. He'll make a fine reporter.
Posted by: Mitch | Sep 18, 2007 3:46:37 PM
I retract my last statement about Meyer behaving like a bull in a China shop until someone can come up with footage of him behaving inappropriately.
This video is a link from NBC:
http://video.nbc6.net/player/?id=157250
Posted by: FizziekruntNT | Sep 18, 2007 3:46:55 PM
I find this whole event rather "shocking".....
Posted by: Derek | Sep 18, 2007 3:52:57 PM
I am totally puzzled by the amount of attention this thing is getting. Do any of you actually think John Kerry has the power to usurp the police? And this character was not asking a question of Kerry, he was soapboxing and lecturing, and warned repeatedly by campus police to calm down. He disrupted the event, he's clearly an arrogant and pompous blowhard, he brought all this on himself and is now screaming 'Victim'; with the blessings of the MSM. Barf.
Posted by: Tim Michaeli | Sep 18, 2007 4:07:36 PM
I think the kid was behaving somewhat boorishly and petulantly. I don't think his behavior merited a taser. Before being issued tasers, cops should be required to be shocked with one - and then regularly thereafter, lest they forget what it's like.
That said, the media seems to have really picked up the story. It's all over my Google News homepage, including on the BBC.
Posted by: Dave | Sep 18, 2007 4:26:46 PM
Being arrogant and pompous is not just cause for being tasered. Neither is soapboxing and lecturing.
Posted by: Malibu Boy | Sep 18, 2007 4:29:45 PM
I can't wait to watch Keith Olbermann tonight.
Posted by: Rafael | Sep 18, 2007 4:45:43 PM
Pathetic. Kerry truly showed his Inner Wimp. That's what we want in our President; a man who mumbles while others' rights are being trampled (and taz'ed); then issues a namby-pamby press release, the next day...
I don't know that the kids fears of harsher treatment were all that unreasonable; given what has happened to so many incarcerated-but-not-proven-guilty... Killed? Probably not. But the point has merit...
Posted by: kile Ozier | Sep 18, 2007 5:01:03 PM
This statement just reminded me of Kerry's campaign all over again. The man, as smart as he supposedly is, cannot talk. He is such a politician he can't form a coherent sentence. His words go round and round in circles and come out stupid. I voted for him and I'm sorry he lost but he ran a really bad campaign.
Posted by: db | Sep 18, 2007 5:43:40 PM
I will say this: I've been to John Kerry forums. I've seen some people who absolutely hate him do things similar to what the guy did - just blurt things out in the middle of his speech, yelling, refusing to give up the mic, etc (and that all happened during one of the one's I've been to LOL). In any event, John Kerry ALWAYS stuck by to answer the question and was very respectful, even if they weren't being respectful to him. I may not always like what Kerry has to say, but he's certainly not spineless.
Posted by: Ryan | Sep 18, 2007 6:04:01 PM
Spineless is as spineless does. What I saw on the video was Kerry droning on about 'that's a good question and I'll answer that' etc. when he should have said STOP THAT, CALM DOWN, LET GO OF HIM and forcefully redirected the dialog. The kid was talking to Kerry, Kerry was talking to the group and did not switch gears even as HE HAD TO SEE the kid get overpowered and then gratuitously tortured in front of everybody and many cameras. He actually answered the question he was being asked - why he did not act or protest an injustice (the election) at the time it happened. He saw this injustice happen right in front of him and did piss nothing too. It's his nature, or it's his nature NOW. "Courageous" Vietnam protester no more.
The kid was a bit of a boorish disruptive asshole, sure. But #1 a good speaker can address these issues and take control of a situation, like if he had 1/100th of ONE of the balls of Theresa Heintz Kerry, and #2 tasering a subdued 'offender' no matter what the offense is punitive physical abuse akin to torture and for it to happen in such a forum is anathema to everything it is to be an American. Shame on Kerry, forever. His tepid decrying of the police's actions is, as usual, TOO LATE and his denial of knowing what happened at the time is a lame ass LIE. Sure I voted for him, as I would vote for a week's dead possum rather than Bush, but does he have to behave worse than said possum??? Please God, give me a choice next November between candidates for President that won't ma
Posted by: James | Sep 18, 2007 6:36:45 PM
ke me PUKE.
Posted by: James | Sep 18, 2007 6:39:09 PM
Kerry, like Hillary Clinton, is weak as water. Always vacillating and testing the wind to see who they 'lead.'
As for the cops--cops are of the same element as street thugs. With minimal training they assume a position of authority which they could never have earned. Authority is, in fact, only earned and never engendered by title or social rank.
I personally would love to taser the nut sack of the fat, laughing, white pig.
Gary
Posted by: Gary | Sep 18, 2007 6:48:27 PM
It's obviously a police state that we live in now, and the power of that state (the Nazi state) empowered by Bush, has stripped us of our Freedom of Speech (among other rights).
Looks like the police, like the FBI, NSA, CIA, Secret Service, etc., just do whatever the hell they want to do.
Posted by: Jordan | Sep 18, 2007 9:26:34 PM
So, there's a lot of disturbing and disgusting things about this - the whole police gesture to preemptorily take him out, Kerry's inability to assert himself and take over the situation... But i think most disturbing is the # of college students sitting and smiling. In the first video clip you can see guys near the back of the room, and near the cuffing and tasering, smiling: this is totally funny to them. In the second video, girls near the front of the room are smiling. I hate to just re-use an old generalization: But what the heck is the inundation of media doing to people? This to me is a similar effect is all those video shorts shows of people being hurt in accidents... All life in which someone is unexpectedly being hurt is funny. The reality of the situation, the real impact, the fact that's real people, and its attendant meanings, aren't perceived. Can't these kids even imagine what it would be like if it happened to them? It's an amazingly small representation of an overall phenomenon: This is what happens to democracy when people forget what democracy is supposed to be and look like. This is really sad.
Posted by: matt | Sep 19, 2007 1:09:59 AM
After reading some of the comments above (and soon to be below, I'm sure) I don't have to guess why our country is in a death spiral to a totalitarian police state.
On what occasion does someone deserve to be thrown to the ground and electrocuted for being a nuisance?? How can any patriotic American support the use of such bully behavior?
Yeah, the guy was obviously a bit wound up and intentionally trying to fluster Kerry. He wasn't very eloquent and was only armed with his mouth and a paperback book.
He actually seemed to get to the end of his ranting/questioning when the cops yanked him away. Wouldn't the best course of action be to let Kerry respond and put this guy in his place for being a pain in the ass??
What transpired before the footage we have seen so far is irrelevant. If he did anything that was threatening prior to stepping to the microphone, he would have been restrained long before he was pulled away.
You can see the cops literally lining up behind him just itching to drag him away.
The only risk this kid provided is that he may have actually squeezed out a well articulated question. God forbid!
Or maybe some of you WANT this to happen again: http://may4.org/?q=node/5
Posted by: Patrick W. | Sep 19, 2007 10:59:47 AM