First Door on the Left

By now I am sure you have heard the story…

Student Tasered at campus forum for Kerry

GAINESVILLE, Florida (AP) — A university student with a history of taping his own practical jokes was Tasered by campus police and arrested after loudly and repeatedly trying to ask U.S. Senator John Kerry questions during a campus forum.

Andrew Meyer, 21, spent a night in jail before his release Tuesday morning. His attorney, Robert Griscti, did not return messages seeking comment.

Videos of the Monday night incident, posted on several Web sites and played repeatedly on television news, show officers pulling Meyer 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.”

There are several videos of the event floating around. One is here.

There are many on the right who are trying to blame Senator Kerry or “liberals” in general for this event. I believe I would have to respectfully disagree. To me, it appears that there were two players here: the loud-mouthed kid and the University of Florida Police.

In fact, Senator Kerry issued a statement this morning that was much kinder to the young man than I think I would have been…

“I believe I could have handled the situation without interruption,” Kerry said in a statement issued Tuesday, “but again I do not know what warnings or other exchanges transpired between the young man and the police prior to his barging to the front of the line and their intervention.”

“I was not aware that a taser was used until after I left the building,” Kerry’s statement said. “I hope that neither the student nor any of the police were injured. I regret enormously that a good healthy discussion was interrupted.”

In my view, this was nothing more than a loud-mouth, ill-mannered, immature and disrespectful kid (no, not George W. Bush) out looking for attention. Unfortunately, he got what he wanted (in spades).

An incident such as this would never have occurred at a Bush/Cheney event. The people who attend those events are very carefully screened. It is doubtful that this kid would even have gotten through the door. Perhaps it is time for the Democrats to borrow a page from the Republican playbook.

This is my view. Yours, of course, may differ.

(Malkin has much more, including several eye witness accounts, if you don’t mind a bit of right wing trash talk (like “Then again, Kerry’s always been tone deaf”) thrown in here and there.)

Also see: Via Daily Kos, Eyewitness Account of the Student Tazering.

Update: It is looking more and more like this was a staged event by the student in question…

The student in the middle of it all, 21-year-old Andrew Meyer, had no comment after he was released on his recognizance on various charges following a night in jail.

But details from his online writings and videos raised the question of whether his harangue during the forum was genuine or some kind of stunt.

Meyer, a senior telecommunications major from the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Weston, has a Web site featuring several homemade videos. In one, he stands in a street with a sign that says “Harry Dies” after the latest Harry Potter book was released. In another, he acts like a drunk in a bar while trying to pick up a man dressed in drag.

The site also has what is called a “disorganized diatribe” attributed to Meyer that criticizes the Iraq war, the news media for not covering the conflict enough and the American public for paying too much attention to celebrity news.

Another site had pictures of Meyer licking a woman’s face and making a suggestive pose as he stood behind a fake cow. The site listed his activities as “getting wasted” and “being ridiculous…”

Just before Monday’s scuffle started, Meyer asked a woman to tape his exchange with Kerry. One officer said the woman was “there to film him” and that Meyer asked, “Are you taping this? Do you have this? You ready?” before beginning his question.

From CNN:

Police noted that his demeanor “completely changed once the cameras were not in sight” and described him as laughing and being lighthearted as he was being driven to the Alachua County Detention Center.

“I am not mad at you guys, you didn’t do anything wrong. You were just trying to do your job,” Meyer said, according to the police report.

At one point, he asked whether there were going to be cameras at the jail, according to the report.

Free speech is one of the foundations of this country. For someone to make a mockery of it is no small thing. If it turns out that this kid set this whole thing up I hope they throw the book at him.