Student shot with Taser at Kerry speech

The tactics of campus police who Tasered a University of Florida in Gainesville student as he tried to question former presidential candidate Senator John Kerry have been called into question after videos of the incident were widely posted on the internet. The fracas recorded by several students at the meeting has prompted accusations of police brutality and suppression of free speech. In the videos, campus police are seen attempting to separate Andrew Meyer, a 21-year-old telecommunications major, from the microphone as he asked Kerry why he conceded the 2004 presidential election despite claims of vote fraud. As Meyer refused to yield, officers eventually pulled him to the back of the auditorium and shot him with a Taser, a gun that releases an electrical current of up to 50,000 volts. Meyer shrieked repeatedly for officers to stop, saying "Why are they arresting me?" and "Don't Tase me, bro." "You're under arrest for inciting a riot!" one officer yelled. But there was no riot, just a hall full of stunned-looking students. Meyer's lawyer, Robert Griscti, said it appeared his client had been shocked after handcuffs had been put on him. Allegations of police brutality triggered campus protests, while Kerry's conduct during the incident drew scrutiny elsewhere. "His behavior here is pathetic," wrote Nick Antosca, a blogger at The Huffington Post. "Listen to him droning sonorously on in the background as a guy is dragged down the aisles and pinned to the ground." Meyer was released following a night in jail on charges of disturbing the peace and resisting an officer. In a press conference, university president J. Bernard Machen described the incident as regrettable and announced that two officers involved had been placed on paid administrative leave. In addition, agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement arrived on campus to review the use of force at the university's request. In addition to raising the issue of vote fraud in 2004, Meyer asked Kerry about the possibility of impeaching President Bush and whether the two former opponents were members of the secret Yale University society Skull and Bones. Meyer said his questions were based on Greg Palast's book "Armed Madhouse," a year-old muckraking anti-Bush bestseller that Meyer waved wildly as he was being subdued by police. Palast, someone whom Meyer described as "the top investigate journalist in America," offered Meyer a job as a paid intern after the incident. That the event generated such attention appeared to puzzle Kerry, yet he acknowledged that even after a presidential campaign and numerous antiwar demonstrations he had not previously witnessed such a startling end to an otherwise civil speaking engagement. "In all of the Vietnam protests and everything I've ever done where emotions were charged, I've never seen anything like it," he said. Students at the university protested by marching to the campus police station shouting "Don't Tase me, bro" and demanding that stun guns were banned from campus. Benjamin Dictor, an arts student, called for the officers to be disciplined and the charges against Meyer to be dropped. "For a question to be met with arrest, not to mention physical violence, is completely unacceptable in the United States, especially in the halls of education," Dictor said. Friends of his told The Gainesville Sun that despite his reputation as a prankster and his apparent flair for self-promotion, exhibited on his personal website, TheAndrewMeyer.com, the dramatic exit from Kerry's appearance on campus "was not any sort of publicity stunt."