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Naked man tasered at Coachella for refusing to wear wizard's robe

Mark Frauenfelder at 9:17 am Thu, Apr 23, 2009

Kindle

A naked man at the Coachella festival didn't want to put on his clothes, so the police wrestled him to the ground and tasered him multiple times. The crowd, who didn't seem to mind the naked wizard, booed the police, and called them names. Thanks to Tracy Anderson for videotaping the event. (Video shows nudity.)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Pincinator

As en Englishman with friends in California, Coachella has been described to me as the American Glastonbury – this video goes some way to suggest this is not the case. I don’t harbour false impressions about the place of law enforcement inside the compounds of a festival – Glastonbury has signs reminding everyone that what is illegal outside its confines is still illegal within – but I can’t imagine police reacting like this to a drugged and naked man. I think their reactions would, in order, be:

- shake his hand and walk away, as he is not a threat to himself or anyone else
- if he seems particularly wasted, check to see if any of his mates are around
- if noone offers to take care of him, maybe try and lead him to the welfare tent for a cup of tea
- if he resists this suggestion, leave him to it.

Obviously, all this would change if he became violent or angry, but a kneedrop, wrestling to the ground and fucking tasering would NEVER come about unless he had an actual fight with an officer. Even bearing in mind the recent G20 furore, in my experience festival police are a highly tolerant bunch – probably partly because they’re mostly drawn from the local rural constabularies, rather than the Metropolitan police in (somewhat edgier) London.

I am surprised at the lack of tolerance displayed in a lot of the above posts, really. I have mates coming to Glastonbury who were just at Coachella – I’ll wait for their comparisons, I suppose.
grahamers

@62 I count at least 4 crimes. (Whether or not you like these laws is a seperate argument.)

His first crime was public nudity.
Second, public intoxication.
Third, disturbing the peace.
Finally, failing to obey the legal instructions of an officer of the peace.

(I didn’t mention his crime of tasteless fashion!)
Anonymous

what the f**k?

i am amazed that no one went there to hold the cops back…i mean, if i had been there i couldn’t have watched those idiots do that to the guy.

i wouldn’t mind being tazered to help this guy, seriously! how many people were there?
they could have easily gotten the cops to go away without EVER having to go violent on him.
that FAT dude, just dropping on the defenseless dude’s chest with his knee. unbelievable. i REALLY hope to see that those three guys got some kind of suspension from work and a fine.

if you read this, naked man, i am sorry for what they did to you, and you lead with a great example, to show that humans can be beautiful, but only as long as they are not stupid fat policemen who grab their taser whenever a tick tried to sneeze.

(just to make this clear, a very good friend of mine is a policeman himself, but here in Europe, they learn the proper way, and they learn that the word is always the first “weapon” to use…especially if the “lawbreaker” has NOTHING to fight with and is peaceful…and naked)
13strong

CLAATRA – I’m actually just as shocked that these cops were so inept that they couldn’t subdue one naked drugged-up weirdo without electrocuting him into submission.

Can’t they teach cops judo or something?
Takuan

Pyota: do you grasp the concept of legal capacity?
Anonymous

I really don’t understand why the public at this event and so many others I have seen on various websites just stand around and do little more than shout at the police officers…… And it always appears to be in the “Land of the free”… the USA…..

I’ll just say I’m so glad I do not live in the USA for that reason … people … you need to STAND UP for the rights of your fellow citizens and not tolerate this abuse of a fellow human being.

It’s sad to see a fellow human being being tasered for such a minor offence… (and one would have to question how being naked is an offence), however the saddest thing is seeing how nobody watching this does anything to stop it.

You are creating a very dark future for your children by your inaction.

I have respect for the guy shouting towards the end stating that the “World is watching”…. If only he were joined by all those “Men” who stood around doing little more that folding their arms.

Sad to see.
Pincinator

Also, @156, I entirely agree – Ceronomus states that, according to the penal code, displays of nudity are illegal if lewd. It should be remembered, Nude â‰ Lewd.
mlw99

As a former state prosecutor and now defense attorney, I’m with Grahamers’ posts. This guy would be convicted. He might have a civil case for excessive force against the big cop for the knee in the chest but, unless he suffered a broken sternum or something as serious, his damages would not be worth an attorney’s time. Remember folks, it is NOT the law that you can resist an unlawful arrest. Your best course of action is to ask the following questions: Am I free to go? Am I under arrest? Would you tell me what I am being arrested for? Please inform me when I can make a phone call. Then just shut up. The activity of the police up to that time, the legality of your arrest, the length of your detention, the conditions and circumstances surrounding the arrest and detention and your cost and time in dealing with what you believe to be your “illegal arrest” will be sorted out later. And perhaps you will be able to buy a bright new shiny car because of police mistakes. At the very least, you will have minimized your contribution to the situation and, perhaps, save yourself some bodily injury. Wrongs happen every day. Society has set up a system to try and right those wrongs. It’s not perfect, but it beats dueling IMHO.
dragonfrog

Here’s a new item on the incident

http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=10238311&nav=9qrx

Note that he was arrested for public drunkenness and of course resisting arrest, but not for indecent exposure. By that point, if they could have cited him over the nudity that was the original reason they approached him, don’t you think they would have?

Conclusion – even the desk clerks at the police station knew perfectly well he was within his rights to be naked, and to refuse to dress when the cops told him to.
Teller

A naked man at the Coachella festival didn’t want to put on his clothes, so the police SPENT A COUPLE OF MINUTES POLITELY ASKING HIM TO PUT HIS CLOTHES ON AND LETTING HIM SHOWBOAT FOR THE CROWD THEN wrestled him to the ground and tasered him multiple times.

More accurate to me. Still don’t know what ordinance or law he violated.
Takuan

how they spin it

http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=10238311&nav=9qrx
GregLondon

Jenonymous: Having said that, the cops acted like they had no training.

Yeah, I’m watching three cops each weighing at least 250 pounds, unable to put cuffs on one naked dude high on ecstacy, and I’m think, hhwhuhh?
Takuan

http://www.livenews.com.au/livewire/naked-wizard-tasered-at-music-festival/2009/4/23/203867
HollywoodBob

Are we sure that this guy was breaking any laws?

Coachella isn’t an event in a public place, it’s a private event that you have to buy a ticket to, held on private property. So claiming that anything this guy was doing was illegal doesn’t hold up. Public intoxication and nudity shouldn’t apply. Now we know he wasn’t in possession of any drugs, unless the feather boa was made of smack. So there doesn’t seem to be any justification for the actions of the cops.

Frankly seeing things like this make me want to arm myself against the cops. I wonder what would have happened if, when the cops began tasering the guy, the crowd in turn tasered and handcuffed them, placing them under citizens arrest for first degree battery.
Takuan

http://scienceblogs.com/drugmonkey/2009/04/see_the_thing_about_the_drugge.php?utm_source=sbhomepage&utm_medium=link&utm_content=channellink
Anonymous

It’s always the same thing, big guys with uniforms and arms that think they can do anything. These things are against humanity and should be stopped!!!
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  The Naked Guy (not to be confused with The Naked Cowboy, who wears underwear) attended the University of California at Berkeley for years wearing nothing but a backpack. He was on the news all the time, but nobody seemed to have much of a problem. Eventually, they nailed him on some technicality, but it was all done quite politely. Certainly anyone who’s gone out on Halloween in San Francisco has seen cops gossiping amicably with nude party-goers. One year, there was a bonfire at the intersection of 18th and Castro with a score of naked men and women dancing around it for about an hour. The cops didn’t make any particular fuss about it. Those communities train their police to view the public as friends, not enemies.
Phikus

Xopher: Did someone touch a nerve? In case it was not clear, I was making fun of cops being threatened by said penis. Obviously they didn’t want to even shake hands with the guy at the onset (prompting the woman from the crowd to do so instead.) So, in case you might have been directing that at me, I’d like to point out that my comparison was to point out that the cops probably saw it as comparatively large to their own members, and therefore threatening to them.

As someone pointed out far above in this thread, we surely would not have seen the same reaction at all if it had been an attractive woman getting naked and blissed in the park. I really do not want to go eat shit and die, so please don’t have me tasered if I don’t comply…
Anonymous

Hmm, I heard no Miranda rights being red as they were holding him down. Admittedly the audio quality is crap. Kneeing someone in the chest (which can potentially break ribs), and tasering someone? Sure if they were violent I’d be all for it. This was just a harmless but naked idiot. The cops were way out of line, but really what’s new?
Anonymous

He might have committed several “crimes” (although, if public nudity is not illegal in California, I don’t really see any problems!), but he seemed in NO way aggressive or up to anything that would have justified wrestling him down and taser him.

It would have made more sense to take him to the medics if they wanted to get his manparts out of the public.

I also find it rather shocking how passive the crowd is – not a single person comes up to the cops to tell them to stop.

This is so painful to watch.
Anonymous

If you would like to see an entire video gallery of this event, I walked by as he was disrobing and walked back with my camera when they were attempting to arrest him for 5 minutes. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lgphotogra3/sets/72157617173613722/ As he continued to throw his clothes and resist arrest, even after putting him to the ground, he would not stay on his stomach and continued to try and roll over so they could not handcuff him. Being there first hand really painted a different picture. Here are the pictures if you would like to see them: Beware, they are up close and personal.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lgphotogra3/sets/72157617173613722/
GregLondon

What would they say if that evening’s headlines said “Drunk/Drug Crazed man kills three at music festival after Cops did NOTHING to investigate him?”

Yeah, because, you know, Iraq was behind 9/11, and Saddam used to put people into a shredder, and Iraq soldiers killed Kuwaiti babies just to steal the incubators.

I don’t know what you do for a living, but I expect cops to deal with reality. you’re little strawman, red herring, isn’t reality.
arlopickens

Three full grown men, a tazer and a knee-drop?

If I ever get burgled these guys can stay at the donut shop. I’m calling the fat naked hippie with the button penis.
Takuan

LOOK! IT’S A PENIS!!!! HALF THE HUMAN RACE HAS ONE!!!

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/m/michelangelo/david.jpg
Kuranes

Don’t judge the wizard by the size of its wand.
Takuan

Dr Evil is Peter Cook?
ChunkyMonkeyBrain

The should have shot him repeatedly with the Pants Gun.
Takuan

“i am amazed that no one went there to hold the cops back.” I fully believe these idiots would have opened fire on the crowd if any tried to stop them from committing their crime.
Takuan

diesel:
http://public-healthcare-issues.suite101.com/article.cfm/its_not_possible_to_swallow_your_tongue

also, the rest of your comment is full of shit too.
Anonymous

wow, that’s more naked man than I needed to see.

cops really went overboard on this dude!!!
Anonymous

I hope America sees how much bad cops get away with.
Anonymous

All this unnecessary tasering has to stop. These cops were NOT properly trained to handle these situations because they obviously didn’t have a clue about how to subdue someone. This took WAAAAY too long and was sloppy. How many times have we seen guys like this subdued by ONE, maybe two bouncers or security guards (not even particularly big guys) — and I mean subdued, not beaten up, just held in place and taken outside — with just a little bit of wrestling training, with just a CLUE about how to hold somone? If they can do it, why can’t 3 big professional officers?

I went to a concert once where there was a HUGE, menacing guy flipping out in 3rd row centre, right by me. He looked like wrestler Bruiser Brody. He was throwing chairs around and stomping on them and was very likely on PCP. He was scary and crazy and unruly. A couple of security guys grabbed him, pulled him out of the row, took him past ALL the other rows in the theatre, out the doors of the theatre, through the building itself and out the building.

Why is it, then, that we have ALL THESE cases of 3 to 5 big POLICE OFFICERS who don’t know what to do in a situation where ONE man is laying on the ground, electrocuted and pretty well immobilized, and sometimes not even far from their vehicle? A couple of frat boys could probably hold the guy down without any injury to themselves, but these guys have to taser a naked, sweaty man in the heart, in the neck, in the left side of the chest, in the back of the head, etc?? They could have easily KILLED a man for being a nudist, people!! And tasers ARE NOT supposed to be used that many times!! It’s against regulations in many places.

P.S. Note to the people who wondered why members of the crowd didn’t help the police: the police wouldn’t have let anyone get involved. They would have told them to stand back and stay out of it. If anyone tried, THEY’D be in trouble too.
Anonymous

@13STRONG, #13, (hee)

You helped me with the Belgium bit, and now I get to return the favour, yay!

If you would like to see cops being nice and helpful, you should watch a TV show called “To Serve and Protect” — I call it Canadian COPS, because it was made a couple years after that American series. Obviously the cops are aware they are on camera, but still I think it’s fairly representative of police training and behaviour here. Fully half the bits consist of taking drunks to safety. “Sir, you can’t sleep in the road — You’ll get run over — Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much — Shall we take you downtown to sleep it off? Don’t make us have to do this again” etc. Even when they do arrest people, they use minimal force and don’t handcuff people who co-operate. It airs on a local channel SunTV, maybe you could check youtube?
Takuan

howdy Rufus! Ya’all new around these parts? Yep, I guess so.
Anonymous

was this really nescessery?? omg.. He is no danger to anyone and what are they doing; they just shoot him in his back with some pistolthing and shock him down.. at first I actually thought it was a real gun. This violence was not nescessary! :o

BTW I do agree with his arrest, public nudity is not legal after all. But all of that shocking and stuff was not nescessary at all!

Other than that, it doesn’t matter if kids have seen it or not. Just explain it to them, it’s not like they’ve never seen anyone nakes before after all.. It’s wrong to have kids grow up with no knowledge of their bodies thinking that being naked is disgusting. Just explain that it is not liked in public.
You can’t forsee this, so if it happens it happens.
Ceronomus

No sympathy. Really…this guy was an idiot.
Anonymous

Multiple issues here:

1) Public nudity is apparently illegal there. The cops were enforcing the rules, although they could have (and should have imo) overlooked it. Public nudity is hardly a threat to society.

2) Cops use of force was excessive and dangerous. He was clearly unarmed and just resistant, not aggressive.

3) It’s a music concert. Expect people to get high. If a cop can’t deal with high people, they should work a different beat.

The level of force there was unnecessary and dangerous.
Anonymous

Two years ago I saw the exact same situation at Coachella and it was handled much more reasonably.

Guy tripping out, naked, 3 cops try to verbally get him to comply, doesn’t work, they do a takedown, cuff him, they put him on one of those event electric scooter things, take him away, all is well. No tasers were used.

What I don’t recall is whether the cops actually had tasers with them back then. I would wager they didn’t.
Takuan

“NOT the law that you can resist an unlawful arrest.”

no right to self-defense against murderous force? Well then, I’ll guess I’ll take my chances and aim for the cop’s head.

You know those three cops shot to death a little while ago? They were murdered by an unhinged gun nut, the NRA, douchebags like Glen Beck and Drugs Windbag and also people that perpetuate the meme that cops are unaccountable, untouchable prison guards that must be obeyed no matter how contemptible and cowardly their swinish, shrivelled little souls are.
Anonymous

when burning man get more commercial the same thing will happen
Church

What if they just let the nutter run around? Who would be in danger of death, or even injury? Aside from the occasional ant, NO entity whatsoever.

Now if they Taser(tm) him, they’re upping the percentages significantly.

So, if I may ask, what the frak were they thinking?!
Elvis Pelt

What a depressing thread. A bunch of dudes getting off on some guy’s penis size. A bunch of people justifying why three ginormous cops can’t subdue some poor guy at a music festival without knee-driving him and then tazering him like it was going out of style. Heck, I might as well go hang with the /b/tards; I’d expect it there.
rollerskater

tired of the police taser videos. take ‘em away from the cops, you can’t just electrocute people because they disobey the enforcement of silly laws.

kids steals $1 worth of candy. kid resists arrest and is electrocuted. i say that’s not right no matter how entitled to godliness and absolute power the police desire.
stickyfinger

What a brilliant job with the camera. Bravo. It seems to me that there were three culpable parties present. I’d say the wizard was the least. And the cops were in the middle.
curtismayfield

I guess some people are really neurotic about nudity. Obvs never been high at a great show.

Um, it’s just a wee-wee, nothing to see, move along.

I was at hot springs on public land this past weekend and there were lots of naked folks, including families with kids. Some people wore bathing suits. Everyone was fine. No tasers. I recommend you try this, police officers.
Anonymous

THX1138 made a visit to the show!
DaveP

did wide load really need to lead with the knee like that?
grahamers

“Oh jeebus. Good logic there. You a fan of detention without charge too? Rendition flights? Waterboarding? Because all of those share the same twisted logic of “You wouldn’t be criticising us if this guy had gone and blown up a building”.

I didn’t say the you wouldn’t be criticizing the cops if this guy had killed someone. I said if he killed someone you would ALSO be criticizing the cops. Get it straight. People want it both ways. Just shut up and let the cops do their jobs. If the cops get out of line, we have tons of video evidence to nail their dirty cop asses tot he wall these days. For a REAL cop issue to be upset about, see the Bicycle Riding incidents in NYC. THAT was illegal police behavior and they should be prosecuted. this is a mundane arrest of a little drunk ass who thought it would be a good idea to disobey a legal order from three cops.

“It’s sad the number of people claiming that the police officers’ behaviour was justified here, especially since a significant portion of those opinions seem to stem from a general dislike for or prejudice against weirdos at music festivals.”

As my posts indicate it does not stem from a prejudice of wierdos at music festivals. The guy broke at least 4 laws and resisted arrest.
Why all the damn extreme reaction to a mundane arrest? I AM a weird guy at a music festival and I don’t like it when drunk/high naked men start freaking out around me. History at festivals shows me that when drunk/high naked men show up, someone is going to end up unhappy/hurt. Everyone cheers the guy for a while, then gets bored of him. Then he goes into the depressive crash and gets pissed off and violent.

He broke 4 laws, he resisted arrest, he went to jail. Where is the prejudice in that? What other way would you have it?

If you want to argue that public nudity, public intoxication, disturbing the peace, and disobeying the legal instructions of a police officer should all be legal, that’s a different issue. (And I wouldn’t want to live there unless all citizens looked good naked and could handle tehir highs and always did the right thing so no cops were needed.) However, knowing that he broke those laws the only real debate is was the taser needed.

In that case, as I said, you have more chance of getting injured/killed by other means than the taser. (Remember the pre-taser choke hold?) Even tackling a guy to the ground is more risky. It is one of the best inventions for getting a criminal who is resisting arrest under control. What else would you have them do?

PS: And I already pointed out that the knee to the chest SHOULD be investigated.
TEKNA2007

dragonfrog#12:

Remember folks – tasers are supposed to be used when the situation would otherwise call for lethal force, had tasers not been available.

Right! And it’s safe to replace all your vinyl albums with these new-fangled CD-ROMs because they’re indestructible and will last forever. (As was the claim when they were first introduced.)
andy ridgeway

this is how this would play out in europe!

http://ignoredprayers.blogspot.com/2008/09/fuck-police-security-reason-4769404.html?zx=355cc56a4d5c9213
Anonymous

And the crowd does absolutely nothing!
grahamers

@75 They don’t let him run around because he broke 4 laws. It seems you have a problem with the laws and not the police action.
RedShirt77

I love the continued, “he isn’t hurting anybody.” nonesense. The guy could be overdosing for all you know. Or he could just go pass out under a bush and die of exposure. None the less the issue isn’t a threat. If you believe the only law we should have is “don’t hurt anybody” that’s great but I am afraid our legal system is more complex then that. We have property laws and public decency laws

It was these guys jobs to enforce those laws. and their first step was to simply ask the guy to get his robe back on. I hate that “freedom of Speech” was yelled during the video and somehow intoxicated morons are advocates for political ideologies in the same way a sober activist at a peace protest are.

@GregLondon

You continue to fail to acknowledge the obvious. They tried to peacefully cuff and remove they guy. Once they take him down, the guy grabs a cops belt (where they keep their guns). Immediately after that a cop draws the tazer. The other cop waves him off and tries one last knee to get through to the guy. The guy continues to resist and then they taze him.

I will concur 100% that they are too rough with the guy on a number of occasions and were irresponsible in having the tazer that close to his head and chest, for those instances they should be reprimanded and receive some training on how to use tazers properly. On the other hand there general course of action seems pretty reasonable.
Brendan McGuigan

my first thought is whether this would have gone down anything like this, had it been a beautiful woman choosing to be naked at coachella, rather than a portly man. i suspect not.

my second thought is just about crowd dynamics and police aversion, and whether the same large crowd would have stood at a distance if they had been killing the man, rather than just brutally tasing him.

my third thought is that yes, this guy was being foolish – likely drug induced from some of his slurring and wide gesticulations – but that using that as a justification for this kind of over-reaction is a bit frightening in and of itself.
Anonymous

If those wussies had any balls, they’d all get naked en masse and rush those police officers.

Instead they shouted “the whole world is watching” as if the police officers actually did anything illegal (he WAS resisting).

Boo indeed to all those cowards not going within 10ft of the nakid dude and the police.
The guy filming was the only one who actually “dared” penetrate that self-imposed perimeter.

Those people are sheep.
noen

Guy was high as a kite. He says “This is the best experience I’ve ever had.” while he is being tased.

Resist arrest and you’re going to have a bad day.
Orbitald

Look, the guy is blissed out for some reason, most probably psychedelicly aided but he is not hurting anybody by standing or dancing around naked. If you don’t like naked people then just remember that people do things all the time we don’t like but we put up with them because the more compassionate we are towards other the nicer world we get to live in. The problem here is not the cops necessarily as they do a good job in the beginning trying to talk him into cooperating with them and their supposed duty to up hold the laws of our country. But when they ask nicely and the blissed out guy refuses we run into the problem. We do not yet have the proper structure in place to deal with unruly blissed out naked people who refuse to follow our agreed upon laws. So this situation pits those who are empowered with upholding such laws with those disregard them and the police respond as they are trained, subdue the person and arrest them. If the guy had simply folded his hands behind his back and let them cuff him there would have been no struggle. It was actually his resistance that escalated the situation. It would have been better if the police had the resources to call in a counselor of sorts to sit down with this guy and convince him that putting his wizard suit on is the best choice in this situation. I don’t blame the cops so much as I blame the lack of understanding and wisdom from our leaders to make available the resources to deal with these types of situations.
BluelIne

Well I kinda feel like I just wasted a lot of time reading comments that for the most part were based on assumptions or ignorance.

Just a general overview:

1) Taser usage and the circumstances where one can be applied vary by department and state. For many departments tasers are used as a level one response (ie after a person has refused verbal commands).
2) Clothes holds to help restrain naked man clearly would not have worked. No clothes means nothing but sweaty skin to grab, greatly reducing eligible contact points.
3) People who are high have inhibited pain response. This means that even if a compliance technique is applied it may or may not work.
4) For fucks sake, get off the Miranda kick. CUSTODY and INTERROGATION trigger Miranda. They weren’t exactly asking him questions about committing a crime were they?
5) There are different types of resisting: Eggressive (running or yanking away) and Aggressive (grabbing or actively striking) and if a) the dept says Tasers are used as level one and b) the guy is yanking away than c=probable Taser application.
6) A taser is NOT the only alternative to lethal force. In fact, it is typically used before a baton would be.
7) No Taser usage has ever caused someone to die. Ask any ME. Being fat, out of shape, high as a kite, and fighting with someone has probably caused a heart attack or two.
8) “Just put the cuffs on him” means that if he yanks away, with only one cuff secured, he has a shiny new weapon attached to his flailing arm capable of taking out an eye. Yea, that’s a brilliant plan.
9) Watch the video before verbally bitchslapping police.
10) If an officer feels he is in imminent threat of serious physical injury or death he, especially whle in the performance of his duties, is authorized by law to protect himself, up to the point of using lethal force. Let me just say, getting bumrushed by a crowd (naked or not) is a great way to get shot, and not many juries could deny (based on what occurs when crowds go to mobs) that a reasonable belief of harm would have existed in the officers minds.
11) All police are cowards with badges: OK, weirdly enough I don’t hear you volunteering to die because Joe Asshole just shot his wife and doesn’t want to go to jail….You’re not exactly jumping to the front of the line to go in and get him, are you? I know, how about we let him go. He probably didn’t mean to, and she probably desrved it anyway, right?
Merrik

Maybe they were a little aggressive, but he was breaking the law and being uncooperative. If he didn’t want to get a beat down, he should’ve put something over his lil penis.
donaleen

The police are out of control with their violence and their tasers.
Takuan

fuck yeah! (we already played that one here, but the sentiment remains)
Anonymous

Last night I saw a guy getting shaken down by a couple of local cops in a parking lot (East Coast USA). The cops had that big steroidal build they often seem to have these days, & one had a shaved head (as did the guy being harassed) and the other had an Adolf Hitler ‘do, also increasingly common on cops these days.

I watched for a while. The guy was completely compliant, he did absolutely nothing but what he was told. The cops made him stand spread-legged against their hood staring at their flashies while they spent 15 minutes rummaging through his vehicle. When they got tired of that, they went over and talked to him a while – I couldn’t hear them, but at one point the skinhead cop took a nightstick and gently ran it up the guy’s leg, from the back, right up into his shorts.

Made my blood run cold…
Ceronomus

No DragonFrog, I do not fail actually. See, this guy was high as a kite and was refusing a simple, and LEGAL request. Hell, they weren’t even trying to arrest him, they just wanted to get some clothes on him. They cut this guy a LOT of slack that they didn’t have to.

Hell, they WARNED the guy that they were going to TASE him if he didn’t cooperate. The police gave this guy every opportunity to be sensible and obey lawful commands. In the end, even AFTER being tased, he continued to struggle…hence the knee.

The guy actually seemed in remarkably good spirits for someone being tased.

The one thing that sticks out in MY mind as being worthy of investigation isn’t the knee drop, but is the use of the taser right at the base of the skull.

But do I have sympathy for a drugged up idiot who brought this on himself? No. This isn’t a kid rising the subway in CA getting shot and killed for no reason. This is an idiot, breaking the law and refusing several chances to be left alone if he would just put some clothes on.

In North Korea this guy just would’ve disappeared after refusing an order from the police.
travispulley

wow, so many comments here. People have pointed out some things I didn’t notice, for instance the naked man grabbing at the cop’s junk (maybe he wanted to trade penises?) prior to being tased.

But my take on it is: those officers looked to be very poorly (or not at all) trained on how to physically subdue someone. Hell, any high school wrestler could have held that guy down solo without even hurting him.
Ugly Canuck

Naked crazy men are much rarer up here on the cold tundra. At least, out-of-doors they are rarer.
grahamers

@73 – See my subsequent comment. I didn’t say that he would have done. I just said that the whining little 20-somethings in the video would have been the first ones crying to the local reporter about how the big bad man was naked/high/drunk and the cops did nothing about it when they are supposed to.

My point was that the booers in the video love to cry about what is actually needed to be done to arrest someone who doesn’t want to be arrested, yet they refuse to admit that it is, in fact, necessary if we are all going to live together.

It may suprise many of you to know that I have worked, in the past, as a federal public defender. I have seen what goes on and I am the first to attack police for abuses. If I had to defend this guy, I would be looking for a deal because the judge would, rightfully, throw the book at him. (With the exception of the knee to the chest. THAT should be investigated.)
Anonymous

I’ve been there twice, it’s about 90 fucking degrees there about that time of the day. More people should have done the same damn thing.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  90Â° in the Coachella Valley? That’s sweater weather here.
dragonfrog

Ceronomus – you fail at freedom. Please move to North Korea. Thank you.

Remember folks – tasers are supposed to be used when the situation would otherwise call for lethal force, had tasers not been available.

The test when tasers are used is simple – would the cops have been justified in shooting to kill in the same situation? If the answer is no, then they were likewise not justified in using tasers.
Anonymous

I kept hoping for a crowd movement, but I guess I’m just dreaming of V for Vendetta again
GregLondon

You continue to fail to acknowledge the obvious.

Right back at you, oh ye who worships at the alter of power. Chest thump much?

I will concur 100% that they are too rough

On the other hand there general course of action seems pretty reasonable.

nice job there, trying to have it both ways, eh? They were too rough but invoking some magical phrase you just invented their “general course of action” seems reasonable.

Who the fuck cares about their “general course of action”?

Guy is cause trouble, cops decide to arrest him. That’s the general course of action. That isn’t why this clip is on BB and that isn’t why people are bitching about power tripping fucks with badges. People are bitching because of specifically how those yahoos with badges executed their job.

House is on fire. firefighters rush to put it out. Yay. Their “general course of action” is fine. Then some goofball fireman goes and puts an axe through the gas line to the stove. And people are saying he fucked up at his job.

Dude, defend their general course fo action like the good like power worshipper you are. Nobody cares. IT’s specifically how they implemented that course of action that is totally messed up.

Watch the cop put his knee in the guy’s chest and tell me that “general course of action” has shit to do with how fucked up that action was.

Stop defending the undefendable.
Takuan

remember how everybody sent their old shoes to the Hero of Baghdad, Child-Killer Bush? Perhaps we should have a Box-o-Donuts Award for the police department with the pig-ignorant brutality of the week. Everybody could Fed-Ex them some nice donuts in recognition of what they are really worth. Just ordinary, harmless donuts. By the thousands. Which they wouldn’t dare eat. Even though no one had tampered with them.
13strong

Three thoughts on this video:

1) Love the woman who walks up to shake his hand, then sneaks a good look at his tackle before walking away;

2) High or not, obstructive or not, that was some pretty brutal man-handling and tasering. The hair-pulling? The knee-drop? The repeated tasering? And the finally the patronising “You’ve got to relax, buddy” from one of the cops. What a bunch of power-tripping thugs;

3) Is it a crime to be naked at a music festival? I’m not necessarily objecting, just wondering.

Lastly, all these photos and videos of police thugs are really prejudicing me against the police in general, against my better judgement. It would be nice to see a video of a police officer being extraordinarily helpful, just once.
Takuan

redshirt: “property” law? What?? Or do you mean you shoot people who walk on your lawn? “Public decency”? Pay attention now: torture is obscene, dick is just what you hide under your pants.

I’d hate to live a world where you decided what was “reasonable”.
Anonymous

Wow. That’s f***ing scary.
You mean three cops couldnt subdue one wasted dude? OK so they’re fat and unfit, but what happened to fricken’ handcuffs?
13strong

I wonder what he was on, too.
sum.zero

nakedness: the new terrorism.
Felton

GregLondon: “Yeah, I’m watching three cops each weighing at least 250 pounds, unable to put cuffs on one naked dude high on ecstacy, and I’m think, hhwhuhh?”

Ditto that. I see three inept cops who don’t seem to know how to handle the situation, and as such decide that violence is the path of least resistance. Did these cops smell some kind of threat that isn’t apparent in the video? The crowd sure as hell didn’t.

Some people here have a very low threshold for what constitutes resisting arrest, and a frighteningly high threshold for what constitutes excessive force.
Ceronomus

Roast Beef
I will admit that I wish every cop was as great as that guy. When I first saw that video of the protest I wrote a letter to the LAPD. He’s awesome and we need more cops on the streets like him.
Xopher

Phikus, to be specific I was addressing the following posters/posts:

Noen 20 (asshole remark)
PuzzledAndAmused 23 (completely gratuitous comment)
Mappo 25 (either a. can’t tell a small-dicked man from a woman or b. wrongly thinks it’s funny to claim that level of stupidity)
Anonymous 52 (implies that the small penis makes the guy weaker)
Redshirt77 59 (does the cops’ job here)
Jenonymous 121 (in an otherwise useful post)

Your comment was mild and if they’d all been like yours I wouldn’t have posted as I did.
grahamers

@80 wrote “We do not yet have the proper structure in place to deal with unruly blissed out naked people who refuse to follow our agreed upon laws.”

Yes we do. It is the same for non-blissed out people who are unruly and refuse to obey the legal orders of cops. We arrest them. What other system would you suggest?

Note: Any suggestion for changing the laws he broke is a different discussion. What do you do to subdue a guy that has broken at least 4 laws and is resisting arrest? If you have a better answer than the current non-lethal weaponry available, go patent it now and make millions.
jackie31337

Kyle Armbruster @209 Here’s the basic problem with police: They are bad people.

I can tell you from personal experience how easy it is to let the power go to your head. I was a moderator in an IRC channel. I started out with the best intentions. I approached it with the same mindset as I approach parenting: that if it ever gets to the point where it becomes a power struggle, I’m doing it wrong. I tried to focus on working with rather than doing to. Somewhere along the line, I lost sight of that, and resorted to coercion and punishment to get expedient compliance. I can remember being absolutely furious when a user refused to comply immediately with my commands. I kicked and banned users out of anger. The only difference between me and these cops was that I realized I had a problem and resigned.
Anonymous

“land of the free”… hmmm maybe not.
“and the home of the brave”… and of the intolerant too.
Anonymous

Okay, we see a guy knee dropped, his hair pulled, tasered multiple times, and generally brutalized and you think it’s necessary to warn me about the NUDITY.

Only in America.
WarEagle

“Anyone saying “well why not just let the dude run around naked, who cares?” needs to get a grip on reality.
I think that most of us vastly prefer our reality to yours.”

Antinous I didn’t realize you were a nudist. I appologize. I would have liked to issue this appology the day you wrote that, but you blocked my account.

I will appologize as well because this thread has changed my mind that the cops were out of line the entire time. I was just treating this as an everyday situation, but yes it was at Coachella and that isn’t exactly ordinary.

I guess i’m just NOT for naked people running around as they please anywhere they please. but sure at a concert like Coachella, i can see how its not harmful in anyway, to anyone.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  WarEagle,
  
  Your account wasn’t blocked when I checked it back whenever it was.
igzabier

visceral reactions aside. do you really feel safer now? who hired,paid,empowered these guys?-the same disaffected self absorbed crowd. In a democracy you get all the crap you deserve, including the govt, leader and it’s infrastructure.
perspective is everything sometimes and stoney did have a ‘rosy’ perspective about the events. Sad, but revealing(butt)
elliot winner

That crowd is pathetic. If they were the tiniest bit more radical, they would’ve gotten that guy released. No way I’d sit around in that situation – I’ve helped release people before, and I’d sure as hell do it again.
Takuan

but the cops had succeeded. They planted the thought in the crowd’s heads that if they interfered, they would be shot down. Right?
Joe MommaSan

I used to wonder why nobody ever showed up for police officers’ funerals except other police officers.

I don’t wonder any more.
ChunkyMonkeyBrain

stalemate.
I don’t like over-reacting police.
I don’t like drugged-out attention whores at music festivals putting their junk out in front of everybody.

there’s plenty of valid police harassment and rights violations stories to go around without backing a dipshit like this. you dilute other people’s legitimate claims of violations when you post this variety of video.
Anonymous

This is clearly out of place; a naked man, who was wearing a wizard robe, at a California music and arts festival screaming about how beautiful everything is. You are supposed to be clothed and miserable at all times.
Anonymous

The police stepped over the line by tazing him but the crowd was booing them every step of the way, starting when they politely asked him to put some clothes on.

It’s a mistake along with the police when they are stepping on our freedoms, but that doesn’t mean egging criminals on when the cops really are just doing their jobs.
Nawel

Whoa! Lots of comments…

For me, even if the guy was being an idiot, those guards / policemen were very abusing to him, even before the Tazer: the way they put him to the ground, and all that. They should have the guy handcuffed, covered with a blanket and then took him out, period. Not beating him or tazing him. No need to do that.

Having said that, I still don’t understand what was his “crime”. Having a peanut for dick? That doesn’t deserve the brutality he got
Pres

If you don’t want to be hurt, do what armed people tell you. Cops or others.

This guy is an idiot.
Anonymous

This video makes me so mad, it’s hard to type this message. The extent that the officers went to was completely out of line. It sickens me.
noen

@9 13strong

1. That was tackle? If there was any, it had been reeled in.

2. I thought they were remarkably polite given that he was committing several offenses. Public nudity, illegal drugs and resisting arrest.

3. There is a way to find out. This is probably not one of the better ways.
grahamers

Random Thought: I wish some peace ballad had been playing at teh show while this was going on. the riony would have been DEEEElish!
archanoid

Takuan, from the link you posted regarding the impossibility of swallowing one’s tongue:

“There is a small piece of tissue behind the teeth and under the tongue called the frenulum linguae which keeps the tongue in place and prevents swallowing.”

I always thought it was impossible to swallow your tongue too. And, I don’t know exactly how being high could do this so I don’t think one could swallow one’s tongue merely from getting high but I personally witnessed an ATV accident (a three wheeler rolled over) where, due to significant head trauma, the frenulum linguae was torn and the rider did in fact begin to swallow and choke on his own tongue. (Of course, the tongue issue was only a short-term emergency and his other head/face wounds presented much more longer term danger.)

So while it is not normally possible to swallow one’s tongue because that little piece of tissue prevents it, if it gets torn it can happen.

(Not commenting on the veracity of Diesel’s claims, just offering firsthand experience re: tongue swallowing.)
mwisconsin

Where was his wizard hat?

/meme
Anonymous

my first reaction- absolute repulsion. Bring on the unicorns (except I hate unicorns).

Then, lots of thought about what I would do if I was there… I like @56 what if everyone just stopped yelling, shouting, and just got naked- they can’t taser all of us!
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I am Nudicus!
Anonymous

Reminds me of the time I saw all those naked folks soaking up the sun in a park in the middle of Munich. I’m told it happens there every day. Where are the cops with tasers to protect innocent eyes from all of those peckers and nipples? Man, Germany used to ‘get it’ when it came to maintaining order and decency. What happened?
Teller

Takuan: Those three policemen were shot by a parole violator who didn’t want to go back to prison. The rest of what you said is hyperventilation.
Anonymous

Absolutly discusting, the crowd should have taken their cloths off and squezzed in on the cops until they left, Tazers … not good, video makes me puke…on a lighter note why didn’t the wizzard zap those cops with his wand…maybe he needs the hat to make it work.
puzzledandamused

Where the hell is that mans penis? I see a nub. Is it inside him?
Takuan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc5ftlnYmt4
heydemann3

My question is: can this guy said to be functional enough to be actively resisting arrest? He seems to be unaware that the people asking him to get dressed are police and is obviously buzzed out of his head. Perhaps a few more moments of talk could have occurred, suggesting that the man come with the officers, until they could get a blanket around him?
I’m sure the officers felt that they had to subdue the guy. I wish they had been taught other ways to get someone to comply when they clearly don;t quit understand what you’re saying to them.
No matter how slowly or loudly I speak English to someone who doesn’t know it, they won’t figure out what I want. This guy wasn’t competent enough to be resisting-he just wouldn’t put on his clothes.
As for the onlookers, they could have done more than stand around and watch and take pictures.
RedShirt77

Wow, I found a string where i am the authoritarian.

I am going to go skateboard down the street naked, smoking a joint just to get the stink off.
13strong

Well said Xopher. I was amazed how many people felt the need to comment on the guy’s penis. Stop. Think about what you’re saying.

Even the “shower/grower” thing – what the fuck does it matter to anyone whether his dick is big/small when it’s erect/flaccid? Jeez.
Takuan

http://www.coachella.org/index.aspx?nid=96
WarEagle

@BLUELINE

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0730taser30.html

http://www.policeone.com/police-products/less-lethal/articles/89933-Deaths-Spur-TASER-Debate-Police-Embrace-Stun-Guns-but-a-Series-of-Fatalities-Brings-Calls-for-Halt-to-Their-Use/

those are just 2 quick examples of a Taser contributing to death…and those are from 2004/2005…
Anonymous

Disgusting abuse of police power. Tasers will kill people when fired multiple times. Police no longer talk with people or use mediation skills. Force appears to be all they know.
Takuan

fascinating! Though I generally make them swallow their tongues after I’ve hewn them out with a red hot dagger. Call me old fashioned.
dragonfrog

People keep saying he was breaking the law by being nude. Is this actually true?

Indecent exposure is a crime, but it requires indecency, i.e. lewd intent. Simple nudity is not sufficient.

People keep saying he resisted arrest. Is this actually true? (I haven’t watched the video at this point, and wouldn’t have sound even if I did)

Resisting being grabbed and manhandled by a cop is not the same as resisting arrest. I thought the police had to actually tell a person they’re under arrest – if they fail to do so, then all they’re doing is assaulting the person, and that person’s resistance to their assault would just be reasonable self-defence.

Finally – Anonymous @36 – You saw not one but two instances of police beating nonviolent victims, and you say the event was “rather peaceful”, and that you’d go back.

Remind me never, ever to go to any event you would attend. If that is a general attitude in the States, I’d like to echo previously seen suggestions for Mexican and Canadian transcontinental containment walls. I’ll pay my share.
Xopher

It’s not a string. It’s a thread. Get it right.
Church

We have the power to detain people who do not wish to be detained. Therefor, they are criminals. Tazer(tm) them!
Xopher

Previous was meant for RedShirt77.

13Strong, thank you. I was beginning to think I was the only one who found that offensive.
GregLondon

Things I have seen high and or naked people do at concerts when they weren’t detained by police:

You’re joking, right? The cops didn’t care about this guy’s well-being. They weren’t concerned for his welfare. They weren’t worried he might harm himself.

They wanted compliance.

These police gave the guy many chances and he did not comply.

Exactly. He did not comply, at whichi point the cops switched from enforcing teh law and looking out for people’s welfare, to pile driving a knee with 300 pounds of weight into some guy’s chest and then tazing him for half a minute.

He did NOT COMPLY.

Don’t give me this SOB story about how the cops were only concerned for this guy’s health and well being. Watch the video and watch how one cop is talking to the guy on teh ground when Mr. Clean rams his knee into him at the same time.

He wasn’t trying to make sure the guy was safe. He was demanding complete and total compliance.

Obey, or I’ll knee you in the chest and taze you.

Don’t pass that shit off as concern for his safety.
EH

It’s a mistake along with the police when they are stepping on our freedoms, but that doesn’t mean egging criminals on when the cops really are just doing their jobs

If they were doing their jobs, there would be no drugs inside Coachella.
GregLondon

cronomus: In North Korea this guy just would’ve disappeared after refusing an order from the police.

I don’t know if you realize it, but you just said it’s OK for the cops to get medieval on someone simply because they “refuse an order”. The only difference to you, apparently, is the degree to which they go.

I know it’s a subtle distinction for the chest thumping morans to follow, but hauling this guy in would have been a lot simpler and easier if they hadn’t insisted on extracting complete submission from this guy before they hauled him in.

Failure to follow an order from a cop is not an immediate situation justifying a taser. They should have handled this guy based on his actual threat level, which was essentially zero. Instead they handled the guy based on the fact that he refused to comply with their orders and their lizard brains got triggered and they went tribal on his ass.

A naked guy, high as a kite, squirming on the ground, handcuffed, doesn’t need to be tasered. He isn’t a threat.

The cop was pissed because the guy refused to comply. That’s why he used the taser. Not because of any real threat from teh guy.

But power-worshipping-brown-nosers like you who think the authorities can do pretty much what they want to a guy simply because some guy is “refusing an order from the police” are always there to muck things up for everyone else.
Phikus

Perhaps these cops should have been shot with The Naked Gun…
Anonymous

Once it was determined that things were getting out of hand, the CROWD, in common sense-for a common good should have gotten naked. Peaceful, purposeful and pretty profound really.

And what better way to disarm a bunch of bullies than to peacefully assault them with the innocence of all of your worldy, uh- goodness. In other words- doing something socially unacceptable, though peacefully- usually leaves everybody, including the cops- grinning from ear to ear or hotly blushing. Socially, peaceful unacceptable behavior(meaning harming no one, including yourself) really works the kinks right out of the uptight. I’ve employed these tactics many times, seriously- when someone tries to bully you and you’re alone…and a bit frightened- pick your nose. This is an example of unacceptable social/peaceful behavior. See Kippendorf’s Tribe for further examples.

Good reading, bad reactions, boring idiocys and some really astute, witty comments here. All the rest- please do not reproduce before evolving a bit…you scare the hell out of me.
gnutse

I think it’s sad that most of you are so brainwashed that you think it’s reasonable that being nude is illegal to begin with.
archanoid

Was he resisting arrest? I never once heard them attempt to place him under arrest. Only to tackle him, beat on him, taze the shit out of him, and attempt to put clothes on him.

Besides, resisting arrest can’t be illegal when the original arrest is.

That being said, the cops were initially cordial and just trying to get the guy to put some clothes on and go back to enjoying his day. A reasonable request. You react unreasonably to a reasonable request from a police officer, you WILL get an over-reaction from the cop. Right or wrong, it is as it is.

The guy was a douche…but he didn’t deserve a dozen taser hits.
mappo

That was so not cool, tasing a woman just because she has two belly buttons!
Anonymous

I can’t watch any more videos of people being tasered. It makes me almost cry.
Anonymous

Brutality is the norm in the Land of the Free.
GregLondon

Coachella? Have you read their rules page? It’s several pages long.

So, they start out trying to get the guy to put some clothes on rather than having to haul his naked ass into jail. But then the ol’ power trip kicks in and they have to have total compliance. The taser was pointless. Naked guy, on the ground, cuffed. What the hell is he going to do to three cops? If you’re a cop and you’re wtih two other cops and you’re scared of a naked guy who is high and happy and handcuffed, then you shouldn’t be a cop. Cowards with badges are a bad thing.
13strong

There’s a few people here who could learn a lot from these films:

http://www.channel4.com/health/microsites/P/penis_envy/
Anonymous

After reading all this comments the line that cracked me up most was: “In North Korea they whould have…” Is it that what the US is about nowadays? Maybe whe are mean, but hey…there is still somewhere somebody meaner than us? Why do conservatives always have the poorest justifications? Un-(fuckin)-belivable…
rasz

Lets face it, those three cops were too FAT and unfit to do anything other than use tasers. You can see same thing on Cops – FAT slow cops are the first ones to use taser, easier than running or using your hands.
Anonymous

Any other country and those lame security guards would have been pelted with bottles and rocks. WTF? Ignore the guy and he goes away. He’s naked so what?
dragonfrog

Please quit repeating that the cops “had to do something” to counter the nude menace. No, they didn’t have to do anything. Public nudity is not illegal in California, so those whose job it is to enforce the law in that state must attempt to be as impartial as possible, with regard to whether their interlocutor is clothed or not.

It is certainly unusual to be nude in public. Maybe so unusual that it would warrant their having a discrete, relaxed, chat with him, and then keeping a kindly eye on him, lest he pass out and get sunstroke.
grahamers

@86:

“People keep saying he was breaking the law by being nude. Is this actually true?”

Depends upon the jurisdiction but here in teh US in most places, unfortunately, yes, male nudity in pubic is typically illegal. See: http://www.nudistlaw.com/state_laws.htm

“Indecent exposure is a crime, but it requires indecency, i.e. lewd intent. Simple nudity is not sufficient.”

See above.

“People keep saying he resisted arrest. Is this actually true? (I haven’t watched the video at this point, and wouldn’t have sound even if I did)”

Yes he did. FIRST he disobeyed a legal order, THEN he resisted arrest.

“Resisting being grabbed and manhandled by a cop is not the same as resisting arrest. I thought the police had to actually tell a person they’re under arrest – if they fail to do so, then all they’re doing is assaulting the person, and that person’s resistance to their assault would just be reasonable self-defence.”

This is simply not true. Go read your case law. For an overview, see the appropriate paragraph on: http://www.americascriminaldefense.com/html/resisting-arrest.html
Anonymous

Question for #251:

Should they have tazered him in the front instead of the back? What if they hit his nuts or eyes or heart? Think about it.
PicklesDickles

dude had it coming, to some degree, but this is rock solid bummer anyway you wanna slice it.

also: who the hell gets this out of their depth alone? you gotta get some friends to look out for ya next time, buddy. wavy gravy isn’t round to feed you vitamin c and granola while he talks you down from a bad festival trip.

all we got these days are cops to harsh the collective buzz.
grahamers

@89 You wrote “A naked guy, high as a kite, squirming on the ground, handcuffed, doesn’t need to be tasered. He isn’t a threat.”

He wasn’t handcuffed. That was the whole point. They tried to talking him down. he didn’t listen. they tried to move him away. he resisted. They tried to take him down and cuff him and couldn’t THAT’s when the tasered him. Go watch it again. They keep trying to get his arm behind his back to cuff him and he keeps trying to pull his arm away and get up. Only then do the tell him that theya re going to tase him. Get it right.
Anonymous

You gotta love the *&^hole that was shouting “the whole world is watching” and by doing so drowned out the audio of what the police were saying.
So yes dick, the world was watching, and we thank you for inserting your meaningless droning and drowning out potentially useful information.
Takuan

smug little monkey
http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=10246171&nav=9qrx
five

t’s mrns lk ths tht rn msc fstvls (nd cncrts n gnrl) fr vryn ls. ddn’t py fr tckt t s Y, y ttntn dprvd dch.

nt nly wld hv tsrd hm myslf f ws thr, wld hv cll Shkh ss t trtr hm.
WarEagle

its already been said plenty of times but I’ll say my peace in case someone adds up the taly to see who thinks the taser was good or bad.

In this case the taser was necessary. When a person starts grabbing for a cops belt(gun, mace, baton, etc. live on that thing) then you really leave them no choice but to back up and use the taser.

That being said I totally agree that they used the taser way too much, and they manhandled the dude way beyond necessary. Taze him, cuff him, take him away.

Anyone saying “well why not just let the dude run around naked, who cares?” needs to get a grip on reality.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Anyone saying “well why not just let the dude run around naked, who cares?” needs to get a grip on reality.
  
  I think that most of us vastly prefer our reality to yours.
Anonymous

The triggering event for the cops was throwing the black and white feather boa (it’s off camera but I assume it hit a cop, even if not, he threw it towards the cop).

I would assume from a legal perspective that is sufficient grounds to begin to use force. That is when you see two of them put on their nitrile gloves, throw his clothes to him and begin to touch the guy, things just went quickly downhill from there.

Basic rule – don’t throw things at cops. I don’t think they felt they had any justification to do more until that happened.

I go to similar festivals, have seen nude folks at them, the attendees don’t care unless the person is creepy etc.

If this guy was on anything, he was still very calm and articulate. Sad it turned out the way it did, but I think the cops will get off from a legal POV.
13strong

This guy, Lawrence Barraclough, is great. He’s a fun, friendly, confident guy who has made a couple of documentaries about his struggles to come to terms with his very small penis. The first film is about his own experiences, the second follows his attempts to make men more aware of the natural variations in penis size, and of how little it really matters.

Here’s his website:
http://www.mypenisandeveryoneelses.com/
archanoid

@19

Cowards with badges are … the rule, not the exception.

FTFY
Anonymous

What irks me is that the crowd couldn’t have cared less about the man’s nudity. Sure if he were in a public square doing the same I would expect some sort of public enforcement, but in a space where he’s actively being encouraged to be naked, I see no wrong being done. Ridiculous chain of events.
grahamers

@91 You wrote “We have the power to detain people who do not wish to be detained. Therefor, they are criminals. Tazer(tm) them!”

Police do not have the power to detain people who do not wish to be detained and you know it. They have the authority and responsibility to detain people who, like this guy broke at least four laws. And they only did so AFTER trying to resolve the situation peacefully. These cops did a nearly PERFECT engagement and you guys are still crying? If you don’t like the laws the cops are enforcing then CHANGE THE LAWS but don’t blame the cops in the meantime for doing such a good job.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  grahamers,
  
  You keep repeating yourself and you’ve even tried to drag this to an unrelated thread. I’ll reinstate your account in two hours after you’ve had time to compose yourself.
archanoid

@16: HE WAS IN THE POOL!!!!
Anonymous

No different than the muslims beating an unveiled women in my view.

Same mindset. You simply consider it normal because it is all “improper”.
Anonymous

Why does the post warn that “Video shows nudity” rather than “Video shows violence”. There were three large cops and one naked guy. Is a taser necessary?
Antinous / Moderator

FYI – until less than a decade ago, if you drove through downtown Coachella, you’d see a line of people sitting in the dirt waiting to use the one pay phone in town. Until the absolute end of the real estate boom, Coachella was Bugtussle.
GregLondon

Get it right.

Go play out your infatuation with power somewhere else. It gets tedious to deal with.

Naked guy, high, on the ground, squirming, is NOT A THREAT. Doesn’t matter how you fucking try to spin it. He was NOT a threat. He didn’t COMPLY. BUt not complying doesn’t make him a threat.

To put it as sucinctly boolean as I can:

NONCOMPLIANCE != THREAT

They had the cuff on one wrist, and he was face down on the ground. YOu’re telling me three tough guy cops can’t get one dude who’s high as a kite to cuff his other wrist? That they had to tase him several times, and that they had to KNEE HIM IN THE CHEST? Bullshit.

When BB posts an article about some guy who was injured while in police custody, you’ll be the guy saying “Maybe he tripped”. Get a grip.
Phikus

Naked man, Naked man
Passing through Naked land
Naked man, Naked man
In the sand where is your hand
Naked man, Naked man, please go back to Naked land
So I’m sorry this is all we could make
It’s a sign of a naked in the dome (or something like that)
Naked all of Monday, naked all year long
Naked is never right, naked is always wrong
So get the hell away from me
You god damn naked man
Go the fuck away from me
Back to Naked land
Naked man, Naked man
Passing through Naked land
Naked man, Naked man
In the sand where is your hand
Naked man, Naked man, please go back to Naked land
Naked man in Denver
Naked past sleep
Naked isn’t dirty
Naked isn’t clean
Naked isn’t fun
Naked isn’t nice
Naked lasts forever
So fold those naked eyes
Naked in the morning,
Naked all night long
So Paul is a naked lady (I think that’s it)
zebbart

How about the onlooker with the Che t-shirt – revolutionary apathy.
Anonymous

Why do you think they CALL it DOPE!?!
Anonymous

I was there for this, and BRENDAN MCGUIGAN makes a good point. No one harassed any of the topless women, or the dude wearing the Borat swimtrunks with his balls hanging out.

Some undercover cops also saw some kind “drug transaction” and used it as an excuse to knee drop some poor guy several times hard into the ground. But I suppose the ten dollars he had in his hand was VERY dangerous because they kept yelling “Drop the money!” while they beat him and he yelled “I’m not resisting!”

Other than those two instances though, the festival seemed rather peaceful. I’ll definitely go back next year.
Anonymous

I was there and am in the background of this video.

It went from funny to hilarious to sad.

The guy initially started throwing his water on the ground and talking to it, before the strip started. A kid came over to us with his ID and wallet which the guy gave to him to presumably keep his identity safe.
13strong

“In the end, even AFTER being tased, he continued to struggle…hence the knee.”

From what I saw, the knee came BEFORE the tasering. He got kneed, was panicked by the unnecessary brutality (I assume), tried to run away (the only time he actually tries to run away rather than just being obstructive) and then they taser him.
Takuan

uuhh…because it’s fat, bald, blue and armed?
Ceronomus

What I love is that everyone that points out that this guy was breaking the law and was subdued is derided as a or a chest thumping fascist or the like.

Do some people disagree with the laws he was breaking? Certainly. Of course, that’s a wholly different issue. Police are supposed to enforce the law, not re-write it.

Even if NOT naked, the guy is obviously stoned out of his mind. The fact that the police tried to let this guy off by just having him get dressed shows that these guys were NOT looking for a fight. Indeed, until naked boy gets a bit frisky with an officers belt/crotch area (hard to get a good angle on that) things are progressing pretty slowly.

However, when police are performing their job in a LEGAL fashion and you start to resist by flailing at them? Yeah, that is going to accelerate things pretty quickly.

As for everyone who is stating how easily this guy could’ve been subdued?

Really?

You know this?

It can be VERY difficult to subdue someone who doesn’t want to be subdued. Body mass HELPS in taking someone down, but it is not the final word. Hell, even with his head pinned to the ground by his HAIR the guy manages to flail around and hell, if you can control where the head goes you can generally control the body.
ggatin

Someone else mentioned it and I agree. The VIOLENCE in this clip bothered me much more than the nudity but we just got the nudity warning.

Instead of booing, the whole crowd should have got naked.

I wonder if these agents would have tazed and pounded on a woman or child in the same way?

Pure macho gutlessness.
Anonymous

Putting aside what we CAN see in the video, I would have liked to have seen the beginning of this encounter. From the first seconds of this clip, two very large men are standing to each side of mr. wizard. Regardless of whether someone is intoxicated or not, approaching from the sides/encircling them is not the way to say “hi, my name is bill. i’m just doing my job, and it would be really cool if you could put your clothes on because otherwise you might have to come to the station with me.” Granted that he seemed to be tripping pretty hard, but that’s no reason to show something other than benign intent. I’ll concede that something else may have happened before this person started filming, however.

If I had been there, I hope that I would have had the presence of mind to tell the officers he was my friend, and to ask them to let me talk to him for a minute.
GregLondon

Cowards with badges are … the rule, not the exception.

whatever, dude.

I swear, BB is reading more and more like the comments on YouTube than anything else.
Anonymous

You know, a hundred years ago a crowd that big with only three police? The coppers wouldn’t have gotten away with that. Now, the repercussions of assisting are too great, too many cameras and Long Memories…..

Then again, a hundred years ago, if this had happened and they *had* gotten away with it a taser would be a dream come true compared to the beat down he would have received…. Not that it is right, in either case.

A little civil disobedience over archaic morality laws regarding which body parts are ok to be shown in public and which aren’t isn’t a bad thing. It’s not like the dude was jerking off or anything..
freeyourcrt

#2

These aren’t bad cops. They’re just cops. And these cops don’t work for us anymore. That’s the point, and the point of all these taser and “bad” police vids.

Sorry to have to break it to you.
Takuan

you bother reading anyone else comments at all, Cero? It is questionable if he WAS breaking any law in the first place, no matter how trivial.
Kyle Armbruster

Here’s the basic problem with police: They are bad people.

Bad people become police officers.

I’m supposed to say “not all of them,” but I don’t know any exceptions.

As WSB said, flowerpot from third story window.
Church

I knew someone was going to beat me to the meme.

“Put on your robe and wizard hat. RIGHT NOW! ZAP!”
zuzu

Proportionality

Did a naked guy pose such a problem that tasering was justified?

Is tasering less offensive than nudity?
Ceronomus

No, YOU are asking that question. Big difference. Of course, if you are an attorney……
Mosh

@21, if that is how you react to public nudity then you deserve every insane over-bearing cop who has ever tased someone for hell of it.

“not only would I have tasered him myself” what an internet tough guy. We all know that if you had actually been there you would have turned to your friend or just a passerby and gone “geeze, some people, am I right?” and walked away.
drdagly

One can complain about the police in this video, but in the same breath acknowledge that a lack of policing would have been far worse. Subjective interpretation of the law happens during every police encounter. In this one, police chose to enforce the law the felt was contravened and did so with matched escalation of force. Pretty standard stuff in the real world.
dragonfrog

Grahamers – again, what 4 laws did he break?

This happened in California. Per the link you provided (thank you), in California, “Every person who willfully and lewdly, either: 1. Exposes his person, or the private parts thereof, in any public place, or in any place where there are present other persons to be offended or annoyed thereby (…) is guilty of a misdemeanor.”

Like I said – lewdness is a requirement for the nudity to be criminal. Berkeley had the famous “naked guy”, who attended classes nude. Prosecutors refused to prosecute him, because he was clearly not being lewd, just going about his business on campus, without clothes on. The university had to pass a rule requiring clothes, such that he could then be found to be breaking the rule, and told wear clothes or leave, lest he then be committing the crime of trespassing (even an organization’s rules don’t make the nudity a crime).

So, he was possibly high. That’s one law broken, unless it isn’t because he was high on something legal, or just delerious due to sunstroke and/or pre-existing conditions. Whether it deserves to be a crime is another question for another day.
Takuan

pretty standard really

The details of my life are quite inconsequential… very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we’d make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum… it’s breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it.
Anonymous

How many people just stood around there and did… nothing but filming? Hello?
hohum

Well that was pretty hard to watch.

I understand that he was “committing several offenses,” as Noen #14 put it. But none of those offenses were, say, brandishing a knife at the officers, or really doing anything that seemed in any way violent. Resisting arrest is always going to be met with some hard consequences, but this was just too much.

The man was being a bit unruly. While even one hit of the Taser would have been too much in my opinion, I would expect that from the police these days. But what went on in that video just went far beyond what I would have expected.

As Brendan McGuigan #3 asked, would the crowd have interfered if the police started shooting at him? I know, had I been there, I would have wanted to interfere, at about the point when everyone started freaking out and were probably thinking the same thing. But nobody did, and I know I wouldn’t have either because… What can you do? It’ll very quickly turn into a major shitstorm, and while there may be situations where that is warranted it just never seems like a good idea.

I just question, if the police exist to serve and protect the citizens… Why do three police officers get to turn violent in a situation where the citizens involved all seem to feel otherwise?

I don’t hate the police, I’ve yet to have any trouble with the police in my current area. I also am willing to admit that we might not have the full story here, video does a good job of presenting a truth, but you don’t get the whole truth without actually being there. Yet these situations seem to be turning up more and more frequently, and I worry more and more about the safety of society as they do.
Ceronomus

BTW

What is “Public” for Penal Code 647f purposes?

Penal Code 647f PC defines “public” as, for example, a city street, sidewalk, shopping mall, restaurant or nightclub-any place open to the public. California courts have also found that a person sitting in his parked car on a public street is in “public” for PC 647f purposes.

Please note that places such as shopping malls (private property open to the public) and Nightclubs (private property open to the public for *a fee*) are covered by this statute.
Anonymous

I’m just glad that people tape this sort of thing and make it public. Doesn’t help the victims, at least not immediately, but at least it doesn’t go unnoticed.
Anonymous

3 big cops, 1 naked man and they still needed a taser, excessive.
Raj77

Yes, Greg London, but you are the kind of person who doesn’t see anything wrong with the function creep of tasers from firearm substitutes to compliance devices to be deployed whenever an LEO feels like it.

I remember you fervently defending Johannes Mehserle, unless I’m pretty badly mistaken.
Rider

He got tasered when he reached and tried to grab the cops belt. Sorry but I have no sympathy for this guy.
kev-o

Unless there was some prior provocation, those cops were way, way out of line, and should be sued and re-trained.
Coachella Music Festival should also be sued, in my opinion, for not having a better policing policy laid out for the cops/security, for not ensuring the safety of its patrons.
Yes, I know the event sponsors can’t actually make the cops do anything, but you’d be surprised how event sponsors can mitigate police violence, which seems like an unfortunately anticipatable occurence.
Generally, the cops can be given a nice shady area to cool their heels on their overtime pay, and be instructed that event security will call them if they are needed.
Event security should also understand that a large part of their responsibility is to interrupt/divert the cops before they get out of hand. The biggest threat to people’s safety in this case was the cops, and security should have done something to mitigate that threat.
I probably wouldn’t have gotten directly involved either, because I was probably holding drugs like 99% of the crowd.
If I paid $300 to a festival, I’d want to know that security, rock-med and the ushers had my back, especially if I was tripping.
I’ll never go to Coachella again, after seeing that video.
Anonymous

looks like the tasering was a response to the guy grabbing the one cop’s junk (2:45) He gets up pretty fast and goes right for his taser… not saying that justifies anything, but it prolly didn’t help things either.
Jason Olshefsky

Cops are worse than useless.
GregLondon

2:30 mr. tough guy cop is pulling the guys hair like a girl.

2:50 Girlie-man’s partner pulls back and puts his hand on his taser. Naked guy didn’t grab for anything on his belt. Naked guy was rolling around after girlie man pulled his hair for fifteen seconds, shoving his face in the ground.

2:57: taser-cop is ready, but the third cop in sunglasses, waves him off.

3:02: Sunglasses cop is talking with naked man trying to deal with him, when Mr. Clean fat and bald cop lands on Naked man’s chest with his whole body weight through his knee on naked guys chest. TOTALLY UNNECCESSARY USE OF VIOLENCE.

3:10: having a knee with 300 pounds behind it jammed into his chest, naked guys struggles to get up and staggers with a few steps, but stun gun cop is ready for him and tases him immediately. Wouldn’t have needed to do it if Mr. Clean hadn’t escalated the situation.

3:30: Naked guy is being tased for ten to twenty seconds. He’s on the ground, face up, flat out, rocking side to side slightly. After twenty seconds of tasing naked guy, mr Taser cop decides to run up and tase naked guy directly in the chest. TOTALLY UNCALLED FOR. Naked guy is lying on the ground essentially passive. He isn’t resisting arrest because he isn’t moving, and there aren’t any cops touching him because they don’t want to get tased.

3:40: Taser cop tazes naked guy in the chest for ten seconds. Naked guy still isn’t moving. He’s flat on the ground, face up. Mr. Clean, with the knee, puts a handcuff on one wrist.

3:50: naked guy is still on the ground, face up. arms to his chest, not moving. Taser-Cop tazes him for another five or ten seconds in the chest.

3:52: Mr. Clean is helping naked guy to sit up. Tazer cop, for no reason that I can see, tazes naked guy in the back of the neck for a few seconds. Naked guy lies back down.

4:02: Tazer cop goes after naked guy and tazes him in the chest for several seconds. Naked guy is still lying on the ground, face up.

4:17: In an attempt to roll naked guy over, one cop grabs naked guy’s hair and shoves his head down again. All three go tumbling.

It all comes down to the cop with the knee in the chest at 3:02. It was totally uncalled for and there hadn’t been any threat from naked guy up till that point. Resisting orders isn’t justification for putting 300 pounds into some guys chest. Everything goes to fucking hell after that point. And it shouldn’t be unexpected. The knee to the chest was unneccessary violence, escalated the situation far beyond what it could have been, and was done while the other cop was trying to verbally deal with naked guy.

It had nothing to do with naked guy being a threat. It had everything to do with that cop demanding total compliance.

Anyone who wants to talk about this being a justifiable use of force is a moran. Naked guy wasn’t a threat and then some fat fuck with a badge pile drives him in the chest.

Use of force should be on par with the threat posed. There was no threat, and the whole scenarioi goes downhill fast after the cops want a piece of him.
Anonymous

Scary!!! Three trained policemen could not detain this man even when they had him pinned to the ground face down, pulling his hair, and (I’m guessing) 300 lbs on top of him. It was one intoxicated man, who seemed like he wanted to make love and not war, against three trained policemen high on adrenaline. It scares me to know that these trained policemen are patrolling the streets. Thank God he didn’t have a gun that would have been a massacre. If you want to read the police department’s idiotic defense for the scenario go to kesq.com. I hope an attorney will help Wizard Man out.
The Mudshark

I find it unbelievable how many people are trying to find excuses for the cop’s behavior here.

There is not the slightest hint of empathy or humanity here. This situation could have been resolved easily and without the use of any violence (if in fact there was anything to resolve in the first place). They are clearly getting off on abusing this guy.
Takuan

good points there, Kev-O.
Anonymous

It makes the behaviour of the Met Police at the G20 talks in London look acceptable.
GregLondon

who doesn’t see anything wrong with the function creep of tasers

are they breeding new forms of idiots? I just said they didn’t need to use the taser.

I remember you fervently defending Johannes Mehserle, unless I’m pretty badly mistaken.

I’ll take “pretty badly mistaken” for $300, Alex.

You ignore what I post in this thread and you mis-remember some invented bullshit from who knows what trip you were on.

Get stuffed.
Richandpoorthesame

My take on this: 1. The naked man was obviously spaced out on something, so he was in high skins to get wild and free. 2. Most male police feel threatened by male nudity in public, because of their egos and homophobia. A naked woman in the same scenario would have escaped this kind of treatment. 3. Three big brutes against one drugged man is no contest! They had enough power to subdue the naked guy and slap on the cuffs without the drama! Two of the cops look like bodybuilders, so this should have been easy for them to handle. 4. Being naked is not against the law in a lot of places. Did the police arrest this man just to prove a point, and send out a message to anyone who might want to do the same thing?
overunger

I could have sworn he said “…a truly liberating experience, I can tell you.” Not “breathtaking”
I’m just sayin’.

Wait, what was this all about anyway? Oh yeah the naked guy.

Jeez, too many comments- I’m going back to the Throbbing Gristle post, I had more fun there.
Anonymous

Just like to say this: Resisting arrest is kind of a stupid offense and should be distinguished from violently resisting arrest. Resisting arrest is essentially the expected behavior of anyone who is being arrested.
Anonymous

@47 – don’t buy into the hype the being a Police Office is the ‘most dangerous job evar’. It doesn’t even rank in the top 10.
See:
http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/26/pf/jobs_jeopardy/

http://www.careerbuilder.com/Article/CB-777-Changing-Jobs-Worlds-Most-Dangerous-Jobs/?ArticleID=777&cbRecursionCnt=1&cbsid=ae02e046c21344a0a996198bf7cf2de0-293818657-RE-4&ns_siteid=ns_us_g_most_dangerous_jobs

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/extra/P63405.asp
Phikus

Xopher: Glad to hear. =D

Note in case you are ever present if something like this ever happens again: The best protest would be for EVERYONE to get naked. Make people embarrassed to have clothes on.
bolamig

239 Greglondon, you nailed it. The problem is that the police were using the taser as punishment for lack of compliance, not as a tool to subdue him.

In America police can detain or arrest, but only a judge can punish.

What started this whole altercation was their attempts to physically force the wizard outfit onto his body. The police have no business physically forcing people to comply with the law, especially victimless morality laws like nudity. Would you think it fair if law enforcement pumped your stomach for peacefully having a blood alcohol concentration above .10 at a concert (drunk in public)?

And let’s be clear, the police would not have put his clothes on; they were ready to let him go if he would put his clothes on. Don’t say they were trying to protect him or others from the consequences of his enebriation, because that is not what they were doing. They were punishing him for lack of compliance, taking on the judge’s role.
Takuan

yeah? what about the other eight million parole violators that didn’t open fire?
Takuan

exactly what law was this man breaking?
five

@26: it’s called sarcasm.

regardless, public nudity at a music festival is not behavior indicative of someone who is there to see the bands or pay attention to the music. he’s no different than the people behind you at a small club who went to the show to talk and not listen. he’s gets ZERO sympathy.

geeze, some people, am I right?
GregLondon

He got tasered when he reached and tried to grab the cops belt.

Maybe if you say it often enough it will come true. Otherwise, it’s crap.

naked guy rolling on the ground may have touched the guys belt, but that cop jumps up and pulls out his tazer and the other cop waves him off.

WAVES HIM OFF.

Then Mr. Clean drives his knee into naked guys chest, and tazer cop tazes him.

This was totally about extracting complete compliance from naked guy. He wasn’t a threat when he got the knee in the chest and he wasnt’ a threat when he got tazed.

But, maybe if you say your fantasy version of what happened a few more times, then that will go back and alter history or something.
Anonymous

I think the cops for sure shocked him an inordinate number of times. But it is not ok to walk around this festival naked. For one thing, were are lots and lots of kids there.

But not only is it against the law (public nudity and all), but with approximately 50,000 people there each of the three days, it is a huge challenge to ensure basic order and safety. It is not unreasonable to require people to wear clothes (and they were lax on the definition of “clothes” as speedos counted as well as “Borat-style” swim suits).

The cops tried and tried to get the guy to put clothes on. Even another festival-goer tried to encourage him to get dressed. He refused. The cops then tried to move him out of the situation. He refused and fought back. They then tried to restrain him. He fought again. Then and only then did they tase him. My problem is that they continued to tase him after they seemed to have succeeded in ending his resistance.
Ceronomus

It is rather a shame that the general populace of the US is so uptight that nudity is taboo.
Hamish

This is a classic example of how the police earned the name ‘PIG’ during the 60s. The only violence was initiated, and executed clumsily, by the stupid and brutal police officers. Coachella is not at the top of the list for having professional law enforcement. What’s with the skin headed tub of guts that couldn’t wrestle a drunk without having two different cops chime in with the amps?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  The police in this area are not well-liked. It’s not only the fact that so many of them have a ‘fuck you’ attitude toward the public. They don’t do their job. My car was stolen from in front of the police station and they sent a bicycle cop to chase it down. Seriously. Half a dozen people have told me that they’ve called because their cars were broken into or stolen and the dispatcher simply told them to go online and fill out a report. But if someone rolls through a stop sign, four squad cars show up.
  
  When I lived in San Francisco, every interaction with the police left me feeling like they respected the public and were trying to do the best possible job. In the Coachella Valley, they’re just lazy and abusive. This incident is indicative of why nobody even bothers to call the police unless it’s a life or death situation, and why the Police Advisory Committee meetings are packed with angry citizens.
Keule

I don’t really see to much of a problem with this. I mean yea there was excessive force used, but would it really have been that hard for the idiot to stop struggling. If i remember correctly he tried to get up and run away at one point. If your trying to be subdued by the police the last thing you should do is fight.

Additionally, i would love to have some of the above commenters fill the shoes of a police officer for a week or so. Call me selfish, but if i have to use some excessive force so that I don’t get injured doing my job everyday so be it.
bolamig

If the three cops couldn’t subdue this guy on their own, surely there were backup officers who they could call for help. This guy was neither a flight risk nor a danger to anyone (until they started torturing him). Tasering for expediency is abuse.
Teller

Maybe CALIFORNIA PENAL CODE

SECTION 314. Every person who willfully and lewdly, either: 1. Exposes his person, or the private parts thereof, in any public place, or in any place where there are present other persons to be offended or annoyed…

Riverside County could have an amendment to that, dunno. If no one else was offended, the police were.
Teller

Blessings on them and on you.
Ceronomus

Well, we can start with California Penal Code 647f PC – Drunk in Public. The Penal Code 647f offense is often referred to as “drunk in public,” “disorderly conduct,” “public intoxication,” or “under the influence in public.”

Please note the definition of “Public” listed in my message above.
Anonymous

Does it really take 3 cops, a taser gun, and a knee drop to the chest to simply handcuff a hammered, non-violent naked dude? This is pathetic.
Anonymous

Last comment is true. The police in the US are not trained to respect the public, but to treat everyone like criminals. The police could have upheld their duty without exciting the public or hurting the guy. They could have just But by the looks of the officers, they weren’t exactly the A team anyway. But really, if no one was complaining or visibly bothered, they didn’t need to do anything.
Takuan

so it is questionable if this instance was a public place? Questionable if nudity in this specific was illegal? Intoxicated? Or excited? Mentally disabled?
Danforth

I agree with the stalemate comment. He was breaking the law, resisting arrest, grabbing the cops clothes and attempted to run away. Was it a bit harsh? Maybe. But that’s a good reason not to be trippin’ balls, naked in front of three cops. He escalated the situation. He is not an innocent victim; he’s a jerk.
Takuan

should they have shot him?
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/9011534.html
Anonymous

not nescessery???
are you crazy
he was about to shoot fireballs at the cops…
gavnÂ´t you seen him casting?

(irony off)
Diesel12

Things I have seen high and or naked people do at concerts when they weren’t detained by police:

1.Climb towers and other objects and then jump off.
2. Jump off of balconies.
3. Wander into traffic and get hit by cars.
4. Swallow their tongue.
5. Assault others.
6. Hurt themselves.
7. Jump off a balcony onto people dancing below them. (Phil and Friends show)
8. Overdose.
9. Have panic attacks.
10. Cut themselves and bleed all over themselves and others exposing others to any diseases they might have.
11. Shit themselves and expose other again, to disease.

These police gave the guy many chances and he did not comply. These police have mothers, fathers, wives, sons and daughters they want to go home safe to.

As a last alternative they will tase a VERY HIGH and belligerent person for their own safety.

They’ve all been subjected to being bitten, hit, scratched, punched, tackled, and worse.

I used to hate police, but then I saw all the good they do and I realized that the good far outweighs the bad.

If you don’t do what a cop says, expect to get tased. Not fair? Try you hand in South America, Europe, Asia or Russia and let me know how you fare.
Phikus

I would have thought it more of a crime to actually wear that outfit.
emilydickinsonridesabmx

I think the simple fact is they could have easily cuffed and subdued without tazering him, so this would seem to be a really excessive response to a victimless crime.
Kobie

I feel so much safer now. Thanks nazi cops.
ismism

I have been on drugs before, and in my experience euphoria can quickly turn into dark and scary terror when presented with bad vibes.

I think that this guy was lulled into a false sense of security before being utterly bashed. If it were me, i would have totally freaked out and just wanted to run as far away as possible. Which is what he was trying to do i think. Cops hate that.

Cops & Security need a altered set of rules for people at festivals/dance parties, where duty of care takes priority, some empathy is needed, that people are going to behave differently on drugs.

Last year in melbourne, cops stormed a dance party at 2 am, heaps of people (40?) overdosed when they freaked out and swallowed their stash. That to me is a logical outcome to an insensitive police action.
Anonymous

Do NOT File UNder Throbbing Gristle
Anonymous

Wow those cops are a bunch of thuggish Invertebrates. They could have gently taken him somewhere to sober up. These pigs live crass and ignorant lives. They can find no productive outlet for their frustrations so they go around beating up harmless hippies so they can feel better about themselves.
Ceronomus

Not questionable at all. It falls within the accepted interpretation of “public” as covered by the California Penal Code.

You can put in all the “what if’s” that you’d like, a straw-man argument is a straw-man no matter what side of this issue that it is raised on.

Asking if they should have shot him serves no purpose other than to be intentionally inflammatory because your current argument has been derailed by the FACT that he was indeed breaking the law.
Anonymous

Do three grown up men really need a taser to bring a drunk/high guy with a small penis down?

He was clearly on something… and a lot of it..
I’d say that’s enough to at least bring him in for a little chat and a blood test.

But the taser was not neseccary.
Takuan

nice try, but I’m still raping all your cattle, burning your womenfolk and and carrying off your land.
Takuan

if this had been a severely autistic person or even a large child with Downs Syndrome throwing a tantrum, would the degree of force been correct and justified? Or a person having a medical reaction? Or maybe someone disoriented, frightened, tired and non-English speaking? (which is how the Canadian police murdered Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver International Airport)

The various lawyers hired by the Taser business invented a defense (for them)called “excited delirium”) to excuse all the deaths caused by Tasers in police hands. The real doctors maintain there is no such thing as “excited delirium” but if there were, wouldn’t the training with Tasers they supposed provide made it clear this person was not a fit subject to electrocute? Repeatedly?
Or perhaps they presumed hew was poor since he had no clothes.

I think the man was under the influence of some kind of drug, possible the street cocktail sold under the name of “E” (although the Waronsomedrugs Industry guarantees such has little of the relatively safe MDMA in it) Supposedly police have training about the effects of drugs and would have known of the elevated risk to the heart of electrocuting someone in that situation. Or perhaps they had criminal and callous disregard?

Two people approached the man were unafraid, even interacting with him. Why were the police so terrified they used weapons and excessive force? Was the crowd threatening them? I guess those boos really cut. Makes me wonder how much more force they would have used in they didn’t have a hundred cameras filming them. Or was the the “fuck you, we can do WHATEVER we want, film away, prisoners, don’t forget who your guards are” message was emotionally important to them.

Speaking of training, do these police get ANY training after a week at the bully academy? A few laps around the parking lot wouldn’t hurt either since they obviously are physically incapable of doing their jobs. I don’t call dropping my three hundred pounds worth on someone lying on the ground as “technique”. The obvious fact is that someone in the crowd would probably have been able to eventually lead this fellow away to a quiet corner to come down safely, but noooo, the power of the state must be demonstrated. And you wonder where they found their waterboarders?

The man could have easily died. He was endangering no one.
Raj77

#29 ‘d plgs fr msrmmbrng yr rctn t Mhsrl (whch shll dg p fr my dfctn) bt y’r sch n ngry lttl mn tht shn’t bthr. wsh ppl wld stck t nt bng mr f dck n th ntrnt thn thy r n rl lf. Bt hy, dn’t knw y, myb y hv prmnnt blck y.

Yes, high as balls; yes, being a dick; no, no need for tasers. That needs to stop being OK.
Church

@31 Keule: Call me selfish, but if i have to use some excessive force so that I don’t get injured doing my job everyday so be it.

Um, excessive force is, by definition, excessive.

I DID do a job where life and limb were periodically endangered. (Try working with mentally retarded/DD adults for a while.) We were held to a MUCH higher standard than the clowns that are now acting as ‘peace officers.’
Chocolatey Shatner

@ 35: The reason that the video had a warning that it contained nudity and not about the violence is because in our society nudity is more disturbing than violence. What that says about our society makes me kinda sad.
Anonymous

nothing more important to do, long live puritanical USA
Anonymous

completely over the top response from the cops. I hope to god these clowns are not working burningman. anyone get their badges?
mrmule

wow, the rules for this festival read like an internment camp… and as for your police force, I find their lack of tolerance disgusting, harmful and socially reprehensible. Glad I don’t live in the land of the ‘free’ hahahahahah.
Takuan

“accepted interpretation”? I really don’t think you want cops to have the power of judges, really.

I am not satisfied he was breaking any law. I believe he is still entitled to presumption of innocence. I certainly believe police used grossly excessive, criminally negligent force over a matter of POSSIBLE violation of a minor law.
Ceronomus

Chocolatey Shatner – Agreed.
Anonymous

Simple matter,
either being nude is illegal, in which case they can simply arrest him, (3 big boys like that ought to be able to do @least that), or it isn’t illegal and they should buzz off.

What these guys did was unprofessional and criminal. Punks with badges.
RedShirt77

@GregLondon

I believe it is spelled “Moron”.

I for one am never one for a whole lot of police power and like to see people stand up to police when they cross the line. That said, these had a job of getting this guy to comply with the law and remove him from the premises as is likely the policy of the permit holder for the concert. They tried talking, then tried restraint, then tried force, and when all those failed used a tazer.

What would you have them do? Walk away? It’s not exactly realistic to have our cops ask us nicely to obey the law and if someone says “no” to just give up and apologize for asking.

If this guy had come over to your house for a dinner party, dropped acid, got naked, and refused to leave, what would you ask of the police?

I can only imagine the look on your face when they say, “Sorry, we are leaving, he said he won’t leave and he is having the time of his life. Don’t worry, he isn’t hurting anything.”
Anonymous

now this is really disgusting how those brutes torture this harmless man. you can really see how they enjoy to shock him continously even close to the heart and the head. those dudes are the ones to be shocked.
i just hope that they get what they deserve for this act of torture.
anyway those tazers need to bee banned from use. i think that giving out a weapon which is considered as “non lethal” tempts the people to use it. just because it is “non lethal”.
i have never seen such a display of unneccessary police violence. reminds me of places like china…
Ceronomus

Accepted interpretation by the California Supreme Court. The police aren’t acting like judges and your lack of satisfaction implies that you think YOU should be acting as a judge. I’ll pass thanks.

Is it a minor law? Yes. Most folks get probation (max $1000 fine and 6 months). However when you RESIST, things escalate on the legal side. Resisting arrest is a big legal problem that can get you a year or more in lock-up.

The police gave him SO many chances to get out of this and he instead refused and resisted.

He was given lawful orders and chose to resist. The moment he did that he escalated this from something minor to something potentially major.
Anonymous

church @ 35 – it seems your training didn’t cover sensitive use of vocabulary
Bigbadbrods

There is a rule where I live that says a crowd cannot be policed if they do not want to be policed.

3 cops should not be able to destroy a clearly out of it and non violent man unless the crowd allows it.

The reason they can is guns, each cop knows he can kill anything that disagrees with him should he need to.

The crowd know that they could be shot at any moment.

How docile/infective can one generation look during a single pan shot? The girls are pissed and shouting but the boys know better
after 8 years of autocratic state authority.

In Dublin this situation could not arise because the cops would not make it out alive if they behaved so badly towards a clearly happy and non threating concert goer. No guns.

Nakedness amongst a community of peers should never be a crime.

Doing drugs in an atmosphere where drug taking is rife and to a degree expected should never be an (enforceable)crime.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” – Edmund Burke

P.S As a small cocked man I take great solace from that clip, in fact i feel like a bit of a ledge
13strong

DIESEL12:

Was that an attempt to get as many excuses and bullshit “apologies” for abusive and incompetent policing as you could into one comment? Well done.

What a load of crap.
Anonymous

wel cops in most european contries are not allowed to carry tasers (at least in the netherlands), they carry a gun and common sense.

Since the Netherlands hase a liberal drug policy tourist tend to get apeshitted and do weird things. NO high tourist has been shot or tasert to date. Also kneeing the guy isnt done, there are ways to grab someone and get em to move, witout causing trauma.

Naked drugged guy=kinda bad, but not really terrifing. cops going “die hard 9″on em: worse. People justifieing the cops actions: WAAAAAAY worse. Next thing you know, people are getting tasert when the police wants to ask directions.
Anonymous

What would have happened if the crowd took off their clothes in protest of the police actions?
Ceronomus

By the way Takuan, police arrest people and COURTS prove someone guilty. Hence, by default EVERYONE arrested has a presumption of innocence. That does NOT prevent arrest. They had probably cause and were STILL willing to let this slide.

There are plenty of cases of gross abuse of authority by police without manufacturing indignation over stupidity.
Anonymous

umm… did the cops ever actually issue a verbal warning that they were going to arrest him? I don’t remember seeing that in the video.

If they don’t say it, the naked guy can’t resist arrest because he hasn’t legally been given notice that he is being arrested.

Sunglass cop ftw for actually trying to talk to the guy and trying to stop the taser guy.
The other two guys need psychosocial help.
Anonymous

Tasers were introduced we were all told they would be used as a less lethal alternative to a gun. Did the wizard deserve to be shot? Sure he is high and who knows what his heart rate is at or if the shock will kill him, these cops don’t seem to have proper training in the use of a Taser and they only seem to be concerned with doing as little work as possible.

If three cops are too weak or too lazy to cuff one stoned wizard then it’s time to get some better cops.
dragonfrog

Redshirt77 @113

But it’s not a party until someone’s naked.
Ceronomus

GregLondon

“I don’t know if you realize it, but you just said it’s OK for the cops to get medieval on someone simply because they “refuse an order”. The only difference to you, apparently, is the degree to which they go.

I know it’s a subtle distinction for the chest thumping morans to follow, but hauling this guy in would have been a lot simpler and easier if they hadn’t insisted on extracting complete submission from this guy before they hauled him in.”

If you resist arrest, the police WILL use increasing levels of force to get you to yield. These cops tried to let this guy off by just putting on clothes. These were not cops out to cause a problem or looking to beat someone up. They gave this guy MORE than ample opportunity to comply with a lawful order from a police officer. When he failed to, they used escalating force to make him comply.

Sure, the three of them could’ve just jumped on him and beaten him until they forced him into cuffs, but short of that, it really isn’t easy to overpower someone WITHOUT hurting them if they are actively resisting. Once you need to take someone in you need complete control over the person because you never know what is going to happen.

OBVIOUSLY, this guy wasn’t hiding any weapons, but he resisted pretty well AND commented how much he was enjoying himself AFTER being tased. That would certainly unnerve the crap out of me and make ME wonder what else this guy is capable of.

Again, the taser to the back of the neck? That appears to me to be unreasonable.

But still, no sympathy for him. The cops tried to handle this nicely and send him on his way…he was a stoned idiot.

The only “moran” is nude boy.
Ceronomus

Bigbadbrods – Espousing that police should be murdered for carrying out their duty is a bit much.

That said,

“Doing drugs in an atmosphere where drug taking is rife and to a degree expected should never be an (enforceable)crime.”

I’m not actually certain that his nakedness WAS a crime under California law, only his state of intoxication.

I could go on for quite a while about the US’s so-called “war on drugs” and why it is a crock… but Public Intoxication goes across the board.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Ceronomus,
  
  You keep saying the same thing over and over, which is the same thing that you keep saying over and over in multiple threads. Take a day off.
Auto Parts for Brains

The knee to chest, was just uncalled for. The guy does need to be controlled, but tasering him repeatedly was just overboard. Like the crowd was saying, “the world was watchin”
Hanglyman

“Call me selfish, but if i have to use some excessive force so that I don’t get injured doing my job everyday so be it.”

So, if you were a cop, you’d have to tase a naked, out-of-shape, unarmed man that you outnumber 3 to one, or else you’d get injured?
Butch Decossas

After I stopped laughing and gagging, I realized I’ll be having nightmares, now.
RedShirt77

The cops were a little ruff, but perfectly within reason.

1. The guy was high

2. The taser came out only after the guy resisted and tried to grab the cops belt. after he grabbed for the belt the same cop got up drew the taser. He then waited to use it until after another attempt was made to calm him down and the suspect pushed off the other cop.

3. Any Wizard with a nub penis that decides to express himself in this way is just making a cry for help. Hopefully he got it.

Sometimes the cops have a job to do. Sometimes their job is to be the asshole.
Ceronomus

DragonFrog – Kudos for someone who can have a differing opinion and still keep a sense of humor. A real refreshing change.
choxielove

it’s been said before, I know, but it’s obvious the taser was being used as a tool of aggression/frustration instead of it’s intended use.

Abusing a naked man at an outdoor music festival is far from protecting the peace. If anyone at Coachella was offended to see someone with no clothes on, they obviously were at the wrong venue.
Anonymous

Absolutely unacceptable of the policemen. He was not harming anyone. While he was probably violating law in being unclothed, he was nonviolent. There was no reason whatsoever for them to use force on this man and something should be done about their actions. Anyone who supports the police in this instance is supporting unnecessary force. A human rights violation in the extreme. Very unacceptable.
BBNinja

He was hiding a concealed weapon (very successfully judging by the video) :P
GregLondon

They tried talking, then tried restraint, then tried force, and when all those failed used a tazer.

Yeah, naked guy is on the ground. One cop is talking to him. The other cop comes in and drops three hundred pounds on naked guys chest.

One cop was talking, trying to deal with naked guy. THe second cop didn’t give a fuck about dealing with the problem and needed to reassert his power.

Don’t give me this horseshit that these guys escalated only to meet the threat posed by naked guy. The knee in the chest, followed immediately by twenty seconds of remote tasering then another ten or fifteen seconds of direct tazering?

Think that had anything to do with some threat from naked guy? ANy threat at all?

What would you have them do? Walk away?

Go look up bifurcation. And look up strawman while you’re at it. And take your propaganda somewhere else.

This isn’t a situation of “We’ve got to kill this son of a bitch before he kills someone else”. This isn’t a situation of “we’ve got to drop kick this bastard adn taze him for a minute before he kills three nuns and a baby”.

So don’t come to me with this horseshit scenario of (1) do exactly what they did or (2) walk away.

They could have used enough force just to cuff him and do whatever they were goign to do.

But the fat bald fuck with the badge had ZERO justification for putting his knee and full weight into naked guy’s chest when he did. Look at the video again. One cop is talking with naked guy and fat man comes in out of the blue and pile drives him. People are saying that action was completely out of line, and you want to play the “Should they just walk away” bullshit game?

That’s the “America, Love it or Leave it” bullshit.
Bigbadbrods

Sorry, “make it out alive” is simply an expression, it in no way infers that anyone should die, at worst it means a bit of a beating – which in my opinion is what these cops were asking for

I think that this confusion highlights the difference between our two societies.

Continuation of life is seldom on the line here, Especially while having a bit of a party.
Phikus

Redshirt77@~113: He’s doin’ it right.
Anonymous

It’s sad how many people have penis issues. On BB I’m used to intelligent debate that is sometimes so rarefied that I can barely track it but this thread is filled with “Tee-hee, small penis!” cracks. Unless you plan on making love to this man, why would you care?

I know it’s human to notice something outside of what the viewer deems as normal but posting “Small p3nis is sm@ll” jokes is just really childish. If the man had a really small nose or giant ears would people comment?

I think because the USA has such a strong nudity taboo people here overly fixate on everyone’s bits and pieces.

Damn Puritanical heritage!
Anonymous

Funny how one of the big rules at Coachella was that you can’t have video cameras.
drdagly

You know, I have one simple request, and that is to have sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads! Now, evidently, my cycloptic colleague informs me that that can’t be done. Can you remind me what I pay you people for? Honestly, throw me a bone here!
GregLondon

raj77: I’d apologise for being an ass, but you were mean to me, so, nyhaaaah.

Dude, you completely ignored what I actually posted here about the taser being overkill, and you made up complete bullshit about what I said about the BART cop that was pretty much the exact opposite of what I actually said on that thread.

So I call you on it, and you say you’d apologize but I didn’t point out how totally wrong you were quite nice enough for you?

What do you expect people to do when you fabricate complete bullshit about them? Bend over and say ‘thank you sir, may i have another’?

You were talking out of your ass about stuff I never said. And you want to play the victim card?
Anonymous

When this happens, people need to work together to RISE UP!!!!!!! All those people standing around???

Haven’t you all seen the movie “A Bug’s Life”???

“Ants do not serve grasshoppers”!!!!!!!!
Mooz

In this instance, the cops’ use of the Tazer was very dangerous, especially considering the guy was (maybe super?) high. In many cases of tazer-related deaths in Canada, a suspect who was high died shortly after being tazered. The effect probably varies from drug to drug, yet the use of the Tazer on people who are high remains problematic.

@ #85 I also felt that crowd would eventually go berserk…
thedarkbackward

Wow. Apologists for attempted murder by uniformed officials. Wicked awesome.

If you watch the video, this wasn’t a matter of a beatdown and light electro-roasting. The Naked Wizard was repeatedly tased DIRECTLY over the heart (and at least once at the base of his skull) at least three times after having a knee slammed directly into his sternum by a very big fella. My money is on them attempting to kill him by “accident”.
Raj77

@60, GregLondon. Jeezy Kreezy, I don’t know what the hell I was at in this thread earlier. I know it must sound like a cop-out (pardon the pun) but I seem to have missed your first post in the thread, and jumped the gun in characterising you as 100% pro-cop here. I would still suggest that I didn’t deserve the flaming, but I can’t say I’d have done any differently in your place. Sincere apology this time.

My dad was a cop growing up, so was his best friend, so was my grandfather, and so is my oldest friend now. So I get a little upset when I see their profession being incrementally covered in shit by vicious thuggery like this.
Anonymous

Just a couple things I haven’t seen mentioned.

The guy was probably guilty of a misdemeanor (the nudity), if he’d been cited, and gone to court, the punishment would have been a fine, NOT getting beat up and electrocuted.

*IF* the repeated tazering had killed the guy, the cops would be on trial for murder, it was definitely a “BAD SHOOTING”.

The cops did NOT correctly handle the situation as people try to claim. They started out fine, but they should have just stood there and continued to talk to the guy calmly and rationally. Explaining the need to get dressed until naked guy understood. They also SHOULD have guided him away from the crowd. At NO time should it have escalated to using any force, since it wasn’t warranted. He resisted getting dressed. But the officers were NOT in the right to grab him and try to force clothes on him. *IF* they made the decision to arrest him, it should been clearly stated, “Sir, if you don’t get dressed, we’re going to have to arrest you.” Make sure he gets it, because at this point the cops would still be pretending to be civil. Then if he says something like, “I”m not getting dressed, arrest me.”, or otherwise proves that he has acknowledged the consequences of “non-compliance”, the decision is made to arrest him. Not to dress him. So arrest him in a quick orderly manner (which 3 cops should be able to handle), set him in the police cruiser, and then take him away. Worry about dressing him when you get to the jail.

Also, at the point they were grabbing his arms, each officer could have easily put one cuff on, and they it would have been a simpler matter to hook the cuffs together.

He did NOT reach for the cops belt, he was flailing, or at most, pushing the cop away, and at that level, the naked man could pretty much only reach that high.

He never deserved being “shot”. And lets look at this as a shooting, since the tazer is a “non-lethal replacement for a gun”. A cop should NEVER shoot a guy in the back. The repeated tazering was COMPLETELY unnecessary and the tazering to the base of his skull was ONLY done to inflict pain and dominance.

These cops should all be in jail.
Raj77

@211, Takuan; superbly done, I loved that Peter Cook routine.
Anonymous

What was his crime?
Refusing to obey authority. That is why they assaulted him.
Anonymous

Raj77 @ 222 – I can totally hear E.L.Wisty giving that monologue… almost as loudly as I can hear Dr Evil doing it. ;-)
Roast Beef

@9: “It would be nice to see a video of a police officer being extraordinarily helpful, just once.”

Does this fit the bill?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9yIBOnbJjY A helpful-police chaser. At a protest, no less.

I echo two questions from upthread:

When did potentially-lethal Tasers turn into tools for subduing nonviolent buffoons?

And, where the hell was this guy’s tripsitter? Don’t go it alone, kids, make sure there’s an Adult On Duty.
BlackPanda

@ Xopher and 13Strong,

I was also slightly unsettled by the number of people who felt it necessary to comment on the man’s penis.

It’s a cock. Half of us have them. Big deal.

The sad thing is that the violence in this doesn’t particularly shock me, especially on the back of the G20 videos in London recently.
Jenonymous

Mkay…(puts on lawyer hat)

There is a HUGE difference between “not doing what a cop says” and “not doing what a cop says that he is ALLOWED to ask you to do”. That’s not necessarily what happened here, but it’s worth pointing out to everyone who keeps parroting “not following a cop’s request=OK to taze” line.

Having said that, the cops acted like they had no training. If they were going to arrest him, cuffing him and taking him into custody woulda been fine, NOT beating the crap out of him and cooking him slowly with tasers.

And yes to everyone else who asked “where WAS this guy’s junk?” Surgical rebuild perhaps?
Anonymous

I was locked up with this dude in Indio jail they fucked him up bad when they put him in the van. It was the white cop who kept tasering him, I know for sure it was him I saw him slamming this same dudes head into the van repeatedly getting all pumped up on using force on this guy, I hope he sues the shit out everyone, Im a witness to the second altercation
gnoodles

five @ 21: “it’s morons like this that ruin music festivals (and concerts in general) for everyone else. i didn’t pay for a ticket to see YOU, you attention deprived douche.”

Hmm… Never been to Coachella, but I’ve been to similar festivals… Somehow I suspect you could have found something else to occupy your time had you chosen to. It’s not like this was on the mainstage or something.

Grow up and stop acting like a Douche.
RevEng

I’m not convinced that this was crossing the line. Yeah, I think tasers are dangerous and are being used far too often, but this guy was genuinely resisting arrest. They tried several times to convince him to put his clothes on, they then tried to arrest him, but he actually managed to break out of their hold. They didn’t actually start tasering him until he tried to run away. Reasonable force? At that point, probably.

But then things get bad. Taser directly to the chest? To the back of the neck? Talk about a couple of places where it could do a lot of damage. And the knee drop seemed strange — what is this, entertainment wrestling?

Also, when did they formally arrest him? I didn’t hear them say anything like, “You’re under arrest for…” or read him his rights. One minute they were telling him to put his clothes on, next they were trying to get him into a hold, seemingly so they could forcibly put his clothes on.

All in all, it seemed like they really did need to do something to keep him down so they could arrest him, but a lot of what they did seems strange.
Anonymous

this is fucking ridiculous. there was NO need for the use of the taser.
Takuan

Here’s a question for all the unquestioning cop-fanboys: What is YOUR life worth? These thugs invested what? maybe ten minutes of their ever-so valuable time (at a peaceful event where clearly nothing more pressing than the sight of a rather insignificant penis was demanding their attention) before assaulting, torturing and risking the life of a person who posed no serious threat to anyone. So what if they had talk for a whole hour to convince this guy to step behind a tree or something. Why was it so fucking imperative he OBEY RIGHT AWAY? They could have killed this guy and took that risk with his life because they figured it was only worth a few minutes. What would they do with a hostage situation? Blow up the building in the interests of speed? I truly, truly hope any who support these swinish bullies one day find their own skull split with a steel club because they didn’t pull out their driver’s licence quick enough.

Ands I blame the religious perverts for this too. We all know damn well it was the ludicrous little weeny hanging out that made this so important to use brutal force because gawd hates you touching your willy. Perverts.
FreakCitySF

1. How cold was it that day? Would drugs do that?

2. Police should have just man handled him, gotten cuffs on him and walked him out.

3. Police should carry shirts and boxers for the random naked guy that they have to deal with on a nearly daily basis.
HollywoodBob

Cero while you may be correct about the laws, I’d like to point out that claiming he was “resisting arrest” is not accurate. If you watch the video you’ll notice there was no attempt at arresting the nude gentleman until after he was pummeled and tasered. The “cops” were attempting to forcefully clothe him when the so called “resistance” and “belt grab” took place. They were not in the process of arresting him, he was not posing a danger to anyone, these three “men” decided to revert to their childhood as schoolyard bullies and savagely attack a defenseless loon.

Way to go fellas! They should be ashamed of their actions, as should anyone trying to defend these animals.

I’d hope for swift punishment, but it has become increasingly rare for abuses of power to receive any form of discipline, unless said abuse ends with the execution of the victimized citizen as we saw in the wake of the New Years BART shooting.
Anonymous

oh my god ! is this a nazi police ?

What happened to the guy, the cops ? i hope they are kicked from the police after this !!
Phikus

I for one am glad these cops set an example for naked generations to come. People might think they can be born naked, and then where will we be? Bravo, keepers of the peace!

(Btw, being naked always seemed to me to be a bad idea anywhere the word “coach” is even remotely involved.)

It just goes to show that no penis is to small to go unnoticed by the cops. ;D
grahamers

1) I will assume that he broke at least one law (public nudity)

2) He is clearly not complying with lawful instructions from the officers

3) The officers CLEARLY make attempts to have him get dressed and not take him to jail. He refuses.

4) When they attempt to restrain him he clearly resists and continues to resist all the way through and after being cuffed, all the whiel saying he is having a great time.

5) (To up posters) Tasers are no more lethal than other methods of subduing a resisting person. You have more chance of serious harm or death from being tackled to the ground.

Seems that this was handled pretty well. Only negative if baldie kneeling down on the man’s chest with force. THAT should be the outrage, not the arrest and taser usage.

The crowd in teh video is filled with idiotic children. What would they say if that evening’s headlines said “Drunk/Drug Crazed man kills three at music festival after Cops did NOTHING to investigate him?” They would be the first to say “Thos cops KNEW there was a naked drugged guy running around and those lazy bastards did NOTHING!”
Xopher

I can’t watch this video now (I’m at work) but whatever he may have done, and no matter how distasteful his behavior was or was not, and whether he deserved the treatment he received at the hands of the police or not…

…you people making fun of the size of his penis should just really all go fuck yourselves with a lit stick of industrial dynamite. Hope that’s big enough for you, and the climax should be impressive, at any rate.

No, really: FUCK YOU.
sum.zero

“The Naked Wizard was repeatedly tased DIRECTLY over the heart (and at least once at the base of his skull) at least three times after having a knee slammed directly into his sternum by a very big fella.”

this.
Takuan

OBEY!
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Cop_handcuffs_reporter_for_covering_traffic_0422.html
Xopher

Did I say “Eat shit and die”? No?

Then let me add: Eat shit and die.
Teller

Don’t forget to sell my grave and dance on my kids.
Anonymous

dude was totally riding the love boat.
cstatman

might have been cold

he may be a “grow-er” not a “show-er”

but all that aside. Tasers on a high naked dood?

Really? this guy was so on X. if they’d walk away, he’d melt into a cuddle puddle, and be harmless.

Taser? Really?
Takuan

21,500 hits: maybe they should have their own channel.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=po%3Blice+brutality&aq=f
failix

Maybe it’s just me but… why are there cops at a music festival in the first place? People generally go to a music festival for some fun, not being arrested because they get high naked…
claatra

You can’t call brutality on a man who was able, several times, to outmaneuver two huge cops trying to cuff him. These three guys were in the middle of a huge unfriendly crowd. I’m surprised they didn’t bring out the taser earlier. And really, no batons came out. I’d say this dude probably had more pain the next day from his little drug binge than from getting messed around a bit by the cops.
Brettspiel

He’s a grower, not a shower.
pyota

i think the cops were did their job properly. they asked the naked man (who was way off his tree) repeatedly and politely to put his clothes on and only after that tried to wrestle him into the wizard costume. the taser was only used as a last resort and the naked man was so out of it he barely seemed to mind. i’m all for criticizing the police when they abuse their power but this man was asking for it.
13strong

“What would they say if that evening’s headlines said “Drunk/Drug Crazed man kills three at music festival after Cops did NOTHING to investigate him?” They would be the first to say “Thos cops KNEW there was a naked drugged guy running around and those lazy bastards did NOTHING!”

Oh jeebus. Good logic there. You a fan of detention without charge too? Rendition flights? Waterboarding? Because all of those share the same twisted logic of “You wouldn’t be criticising us if this guy had gone and blown up a building”.

It’s sad the number of people claiming that the police officers’ behaviour was justified here, especially since a significant portion of those opinions seem to stem from a general dislike for or prejudice against weirdos at music festivals.
allen

Excessive force.

I’m not contesting the arrest (although I do think that it really shouldn’t be a big deal if someone wants to get crazy at what is, essentially, a bacchanal), but I AM contesting the force that was used.

Seriously- that was uncalled for, and I hope there are repurcussions.
dragonfrog

Reveng – tasers are to be used only as an alternative to lethal force. Say it again, “only as an alternative to lethal force”. Tasers are potentially lethal, so every time a cop chooses to use a taser, they are taking a gamble that they might just kill their target, but it is probably better than the alternative, i.e. that if they don’t subdue him but quick, someone will probably die.

So, they tased the man in the back, for the offence of trying to get away from them after he’d been kneed hard in the chest despite presenting no menace to them.

That is acceptable only if, lacking a taser, it would have been acceptable to shoot him in the back with live ammunition. Would you say that the man would have had it coming if he’d been shot dead on the spot? No? Then he didn’t have it coming when he was tased either.

Teller @165 – that’s my point exactly. It’s not sufficient to be nude in public, the nudity must be both willful and lewd. Willful, his nudity most certainly was, but it was not lewd. As such, it was no crime.