Editorial: Settlement with Taser victim makes sense

The university recently settled a lawsuit filed by former student Mostafa Tabatabainejad by offering him $220,000.

Tabatabainejad was the student whom university police repeatedly used a Taser on when he wouldn’t show Community Service Officers his BruinCard while in the Powell Library CLICC Lab.

Given that an independent use-of-force expert condemned university police for using the Taser on Tabatabainejad in a report released in 2007, we think the settlement makes sense.

We also praise the university for revising its use-of-force policy to be more stringent with Taser use.

We think UCPD should not be using a Taser on students in most circumstances. We do, however, recognize that a Taser can be an important law enforcement tool used to protect students against outsiders who wish us harm.

In some circumstances a Taser can be a very effective tool, and we would like to commend university police for the time they used a Taser to stop a deranged man who was walking the streets of Westwood firing off shots from semi-automatic weapons.

Thankfully, police were able to end this incident without harming the gunman and before he could harm anyone else.

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