[Koodari]

Originally Posted by Windswept I personally think he acted like the world's biggest self-absorbed spoiled brat. I cringed as I watched his appalling display of "oh-look-at-me" attention-seeking histrionics. I hope his mommy is happy at the obnoxious creature she has produced with her obviously excellent parenting skills. Ugh. I am embarrassed that he is an American college student.

He engineered a scene, that's pretty clear, so attention-seeking yes. But self-absorbed and spoiled? Depends on his motivation, I'd say. What did he ask and what did Kerry answer? I think that's the most interesting part of the story, and without it the rest is not in context.

He refused to cooperate, and resisted loudly and *aggressively* police efforts to remove him from disrupting the entire assembly. Even when police had wrestled him to the floor, he continued to resist as hard as he could;

No, he didn't. From what I saw in the clip, he resisted but did not attempt to hurt the police at all. I don't call that aggressive.

and I personally feel they were justified in going to the next level to control his behavior, using equipment they'd been given for unruly, uncontrollable individuals.

To be fair tasering is quite light use of force, but the police could have handled him without it. They had overwhelming numbers. There were definitely enough of them to carry an unarmed, nonviolent struggler out, and that is exactly what they should have done. The person who made the decision to employ taser should get a warning, couple days suspension or something, but it's not a big mistake.

One real-world factor that often drives use of slight excessive force is that the police are out of shape and don't trust their own ability to handle a situation using only their own body because they haven't properly refreshed their training for it. Then there's no other chance left besides deploying a tool and using that. I wonder if this could have played a part here?

They warned him that if he didn't cease his violent struggling they would use the taser; but, again, he refused to heed their warning.

Giving a warning if there is time is standard procedure after the decision to escalate force, so this is business as usual. Doesn't make the decision correct.

This was a university setting, and after the killings at Virginia Tech, I think campus police are more proactive when someone on campus starts acting in an irrational manner.

If by "proactive" you mean "more prone to use excessive force", then maybe. Otherwise VT is unrelated and that sentence sounds like police PR.