Detention debacle

At about 11:30 p.m. Nov. 14, campus police officers at the University of California, Los Angeles brutally attacked an Iranian-American student studying in the library. An internal police review and an independent investigation are simultaneously underway. \nThese are the details compiled from eyewitness testimony, the police report, various news outlets and a cell phone video available on YouTube: 23-year-old Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a senior, was asked to produce his student ID card as per UCLA policy. It's not clear whether Tabatabainejad failed or refused to do so, but he was accosted by UCPD either as he was leaving or refusing to leave the library. The victim demanded the police remove their hands, at which point Officer Terrence Duren proceeded to taser Tabatabainejad. When Tabatabainejad still refused to leave the library (because of incapacitation or resistance), Duren continued to taser Tabatabainejad up to five more times (the exact number is unclear) before taking the student into custody.\nIncredibly, UCPD's criminally vague policy on taser use absolves Duren of any breach in protocol. Officers are actually allowed to use the weapons as "a pain compliance technique," Assistant UCPD Chief Jeff Young said.\nMore disturbing than Duren's entirely unwarranted response to a nonthreatening situation is UCPD's complete inability to properly train its officers. In 1990, Duren was suspended for 90 days after he choked a student with his nightstick outside a fraternity; in 2003, the officer shot a homeless man discovered in a university building. God only knows what would have happened to Tabatabainejad had Duren been wielding a standard issue 9-mm instead of a miniature cattle prod. \nLast week's events bring to the forefront the dangerously taboo issue of police professionalism, especially that of campus police. Just last year IUPD detained innocent black students on suspicion of concealing weapons at an Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity event being held at the Union. The students were released at the scene when the officers failed to find the alleged firearms. At the time, IUPD spokesman Capt. Jerry Minger defended the officers' decision based on standard operating procedure, but one could ask whether such measures would have been applied to white students.\nHope is not lost for the cause of advancement of racial diversity and acceptance at IU. Right here on campus we have several student groups primarily concerned with diversity, including the Black Student Union, La Casa, the Hoosier Rights Campaign and more. Of course, we also have IU's own Commission On Multicultural Understanding, whose stated goals include to "gather information and encourage activities that increase awareness and understanding of racism and other forms of oppression." \nWe are lucky at IU to have such organizations concerned with the well-being and diversity of IU's campus. It is with these organizations' assistance and with the continued demand from students that diversity and acceptance be the priority of this institution that IU will, we hope, avoid incidents like that at UCLA and deal constructively with those that do occur.