Reply #121: What you recommend is the safe thing to do

[pnwmom]

and what I've told my two sons they should do, because I'm their mother.

But I'm not sure that it would have been the BEST thing to do. Suppose this young man honestly thought he was singled out for his appearance. (His attorney says that the white males in the area were not asked to show ID.) Suppose he decided to perform an act of civil disobedience, as he says (i.e., going limp when the police grabbed him.)

By his actions, this young man has revealed that the official UCLA policy on Tasers allows the campus cops to use Tasers or "pain compliance" on passive resistors -- as with "dangerous animals." Is that the kind of policy we want Universities or other institutions to have in place -- allowing repeated shocks of 50,000 volts to passive resistors posing no threat to anyone?

This young and foolish and brave and loud and angry young man, in standing up for his civil liberties, has done us all a favor.

IMHO.