[NYTr] Student Arrested, Tasered at Kerry Event

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AP - Sep 18, 2007
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/STUDENT_ARRESTED_KERRY?SITE=TXPLA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Student Arrested, Tasered at Kerry Event

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- A University of Florida student was Tasered
and arrested after trying to ask U.S. Senator John Kerry about the 2004
election and other subjects during a campus forum.

Videos of the incident posted on several Web sites show officers
pulling Andrew Meyer, 21, away from the microphone after he asks Kerry
about impeaching President Bush and whether he and Bush were both
members of the secret society Skull and Bones at Yale University.

"He apparently asked several questions - he went on for quite awhile -
then he was asked to stop," university spokesman Steve Orlando said.
"He had used his allotted time. His microphone was cut off, then he
became upset."

As two officers take Meyer by the arms, Kerry, D-Mass., is heard to
say, "That's alright, let me answer his question." Audience members
applaud, and Meyer struggles to escape for several seconds as up to
four officers try to remove him from the room.

Meyer screams for help and asks "What did I do?" as he tries to break
away from officers. He is forced to the ground and officers order him
to stop resisting. Meyer says he will walk out if the officers let him
go.

As Kerry tells the audience he will answer the student's "very
important question," Meyer struggles on the ground and yells at the
officers to release him, crying out, "Don't Tase me, bro," just before
he is Tasered. He is then led from the room, screaming, "What did I do?"

Meyer was charged with resisting an officer and disturbing the peace,
according to Alachua County jail records. No bond had been set. Meyer
was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday morning, a jail official said.

It was not known if Meyer had an attorney.

Orlando said university police would conduct an internal investigation.

"The police department does have a standard procedure for when they use
force, including when they use a Taser," Orlando said. "That is what
the internal investigation would address - whether the proper
procedures were followed, whether the officers acted appropriately."

© 2007 The Associated Press.