Bob Norman discovered that Meyer wrote for the Sun-Sentinel's Teentime section. Norman found that Meyer mainly wrote entertainment articles.
Sun-Sentinel blogger Michael Mayo has key passages from the police report of Meyer's arrest.
“A crowd began to form and yell at us. Some were yelling let him go, he didn’t do anything. I pulled my Taser, turned off the safety, dropped the cartridge, put it against his left chest and pulled the trigger. It did not activate after several attempts. While my Taser was still against his chest, where he could see it, he was told several times to stop resisting and turn over or he would be tased. He still would not comply, continued to struggle and yell for us to let him go. I instructed Ofc. Mallo to utilize her Taser, which she did.”
That crowd video-recorded the incident. The cops could have carried Meyer's sorry ass out of the venue. Tasering a meek 5'6 loudmouth is extreme. This is coming from someone who hopes Meyer never gets a job as a journalist. (He would be perfect for Inside Edition.)
We can probably debate Andrew Meyers's conduct forever: his history of self aggrandizement, his motives and his method of exercising freedom of speech. Everyone seems to have a definite and divergent viewing of the video of their choice. I do think the actual questions he put to Kerry concerning the 2004 election and the impeachment of the president were valid ones, in spite of the confrontational manner of their asking. Also it looked to me that, when finished with his questioning, Andy was in the process of backing away from the mike when he was grabbed by the rent-a-cops. I thought that, if the they had just left him alone, he would have continued to move away from the mike and probably would have taken his seat.
ReplyDeleteAll this is highly speculative.
One thing that I think we can agree on is that the behavior of the U of F campus police was over reactive and uncalled for. They took a situation that was, at worst, a minor disturbance and made it into a violent, disruptive example of police brutality, employing unnecessary, punishing, deadly force.
The problem in this country is not that there are two legitimate sides to the debate over burning issues such as two stolen presidential elections, the prosecution of an illegitimate war in Iraq, high crimes and misdemeanors of the executive and the bipartisan complicity in all this, aided by a biased communications industry. There is a distinct absence of real debate in this country, not because of a reluctance of our citizens to embrace an open airing of the issues but, because of a complete refusal of one party to even allow these issues to be discussed. That is why the side, with no valid points with which to counter its critics, more and more resorts to violence, the suppression of speech and the denial of other civil and human rights. Authentic people with valid reasons for their actions rarely have to use violence to validate their views. As a result of this vacuum, many feel the need to use distinctly un-Roberts Rules’ strategies to make their points. That is why demonstrators disrupt Congressional hearings, Administration speeches and Kerry forums. I have even found it necessary to grab the mike myself when, not too long ago, I found I was being unfairly excluded from a public forum that was discussing the Iraqi war and the bombing of Iran. Absent free and open debate in this country, one side will increasingly see disruption, civil disobedience and revolution as its only way to register dissent and the other side will see violence and suppression of speech as its only options.
Bob Boldt