INVESTIGATIVE — Examining the Video Timeline of Student Tasered for Asking Kerry Questions: Police Escalated It

I have analyzed video footage of Andrew Meyer, student who was tasered by police at an event where Senator Kerry was speaking. And I have discovered a few facts in the video footage itself that has been completely glossed over by corporate media and even in the blogosphere for that matter. No one catches it. I have broken it down to video time markers so that you, the reader, can watch, see it, and observe it yourself. This evidence inarguably proves that police detainment and police brutality were both completely out of line.

So, Meyer wants a couple extra minutes, Meyer felt that the right to speak applied to him, and he had been waiting an awful long time. Somehow, it is wrong that Meyer wanted a couple extra minutes? What is the big deal of giving Meyer a couple extra minutes? No one else was behind him!

In fact, he had finished all of his questions and comments in less than two minutes, 1 minute and 30 seconds almost exactly. And this is what corporate media is spinning as a “tantrum” of questions? He asked only three questions.

Meyer is obviously passionate about governance and democracy. This is an individual who likely prizes the freedom of speech and press specifically as he suggest John Kerry read Greg Palast’s book, Armed Madhouse. Greg Palast is a top investigate journalist, a dying breed in Corporate America.

Now Meyer sees cops trying to detain him after he has spoke when he was exercising that freedom. Meyer stated after his first question that he had two more questions. The mic was cut off before he could elaborate comments after asking the third question. In effect, Meyer has asked all the questions he had wanted to ask, in a whole minute.

Watch the video and keep in track of the following markers to pay special attention:

The video posted on this blog starts at 3:55. Meyer doesn’t get to the mic until 3:47. At 3:20, a fellow, perhaps school official or secret police or who knows what, whispers something in the ear of the policewoman behind Meyer. Meyer had spoken at that point for 27 seconds, not even a half a minute. Four seconds later at 3:16, the police woman interrupts Meyer. Meyer says Kerry has spoken for two hours, he feels like he should have at least a couple minutes. Meyer in fact finished off what he had wanted to say almost exactly a mere one minute later. Circa 2:17 of the video on this blog, you can hear Meyer shrugging his head and shoulders and saying “thank you” and turning as if to leave. The mic had been cut off. The police then attempt to detain him. Before they begin detaining him, Kerry already begins to respond immediately after you can hear Meyer say “thank you”. Kerry recognized that Meyer had finished his questions. Meyer was moving to go sit back down.

It is interesting that corporate media cut the clip short, shortly before 2:17, and thus it conveys a misrepresentation of the context of the questions and the amount of actual time that transpired. It makes Meyer look the worse for it too.

So, why was Meyer being detained?

Because he exceeded his allotted time? How much was that allotted time exactly?

Meyer had spoken for a minute and a half in the entire clip. At less than a half a minute, before the as yet unidentified individual whispered to a policewoman something that likely prompted her to interrupt Meyer four seconds later. Meyer is told to tie it up before he has spoken for even thirty seconds. After asking Kerry if he really wanted to be president, Meyer stated he had two more questions, why not impeach Bush now, and if Kerry belonged to the college club called Skulls and Crossbones. He is able to ask all the questions. Mic is cut. Disappointed, Meyer shrugs it off, says thank you, turns, obviously done and about to go sit back down. He has only taken one whole more minute after he was likely told to tie it up.

And then he notices the police attempting to detain him.

Justifiably, Meyer wanted to know why he was being detained by police. Did the police ever explain why to him? That he was being arrested for speaking more than 30 seconds or more than a minute?

The police charged him with “disrupting a public event”. Is it now a legitimate misdemeanor to talk for a whole minute and a half to a public official after waiting in for a long time? The charge of “resisting arrest” is not relevant to understanding the situation. The obvious question that many corporate media aren’t asking is, well, why was Meyer being arrested in the first place? And how exactly is attempting to question an elected official for around one minute and thirty seconds qualify being arrested for “disrupting a public event”?

Meyer’s whole one minute and a half of three questions to Kerry cannot (or should not) be considered to be disrupting a public event. If speaking for a whole minute and a half warrants being arrested at a question and answer session with an elected official in the United States of America, democracy is more than dead in America, readers, it is worse, it is a demockery.

He had spoken for a mere 1 minute and 30 seconds. He had kept his promise, in fact, he finished his further comments in one minute instead of a couple extra minutes. He might have wanted one more minute, but they cut the mic, he doesn’t yell or throw any tantrum, but says thank you, turns to go sit back down.

Then the police escalated it.

They attempted to arrest him immediately after Meyer shrugs and turns to go sit back down.

If the police had let Meyer sit down, who showed no sign or intent of yelling any comments, nothing would have happen and likely no one would know that John Kerry spoke at the University of Florida — or care.

Meyer obviously felt that he had done nothing wrong and was visibly befuddled why he was being arrested. And the one thing that Meyer did which people stupidly criticize is that he resisted and somehow that’s bad and worse than him being tasered — excessive force. Tasers have known to cause fatalities. Does this “disrupting a public event” warrant the dangers of using a taser? Was he a physical threat to anyone at all? Meyer consistently raises his arms up in the air, asking “what have I done wrong”? He is communicating that he wants to know why they are trying to arrest him. At the same time, not once does he physically threaten the life of any police officer. His demeanor communicates that he is not threatening.

I cannot condemn Meyer for resisting and asking “what have I done wrong?”. I can only praise Meyer for doing what many people are too cowardly to do: taking a stand and demanding to be treated as a citizen instead of being treated as a subject.

Blind obedience has consequences. And freedom isn’t a single one of those consequences.

Meyer wanted to understand what was happening first. And shouldn’t citizens have a right to know exactly what they have done wrong when they are threatened with arrest or being arrested?

The police escalated it.

The evidence is clear.

What Meyer did shows us where we are unless more actions are taking in defiance against it, it being the police state.

The dangers of a police state is where citizens cannot question or have legal ground to resist unlawful arrests. The dangers of a police state where asking what you are being charged with, asking for badge numbers and names, can be vaguely possibly classified as “refusing to comply”, “disorderly conduct”, and/or “obstruction”. And, in this case, “disturbing a public event” for speaking a whoopee minute and a half, and then “resisting arrest” for a ridiculous charge.

And, to make it beautifully Orwellian, it is, after all, illegal to resist an illegal arrest, and lawful to allow one’s self to be unlawfully charged and arrested.

The worst crime that humanity can commit, the violation of human rights, doesn’t matter in a police state.

Questioning, resisting, and defending human rights ends up instead becoming the crime.

Last thoughts:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOlmNBxke-E&feature=player_embedded