Andrew Warner

Excerpts from Democracy Now:
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Hussan Ayloush, the Executive Director of Southern California CARE, that’s the Coucil on American Islamic Relations.

Four of UCLA's nearly 60 full-time police officers recently won “taser awards” given by the manufacturers of the electronic shock device to law enforcement officers "who save a life in the line of duty through extraordinary use of the taser." This is according to the Los Angeles times. I want to ask one more question and talk to you about CNN's Glenn Beck's comments when he was interviewing the first Muslim Member of Congress.

According to a study published in the Lanset Medical Journal in 2001, a charge of three to five seconds of a taser gun can result in immobilization for five to 15 minutes. Which would mean that Mostafa could have been physically unable to stand when the officers demanded that he do so. The incident follows the recent announcement that four of the campus police near--won the so-called taser awards as I said before a break from the manufacturer. Have you talked to Mostafa?

HUSSAN AYLOUSH: Not personally I haven't done so. But I know people on the campus have done so. People we've worked with from the Muslim Students Association and others. And I know currently, he's not personally making any comments anymore, since he has hired an attorney. What I want to add is on the issue of the taser itself very quickly. I think there was a recent study by the ACLU that shows that since 1999, 148 people have died as a result of the use of taser. So that really brings us to the really larger picture in the whole issue and that is, the use of such brutal tactics in the attempt to arrest people.

I think it also leads to the underlying issue and that is, the culture of violence that is sweeping our nation and the world today. Where we as individuals become so desensitized to the pain and suffering of other people. And we witness this maybe in the arrests of individuals, but also we see it in what happens in Abu Ghraibs and in the Guantanamo Bays prisons. In the way—the police brutality cases we hear, whether it’s against Iraqi prisoners, against Afghani prisoners, or even against our own American detainees. And I think this should maybe be a wake-up call for us and we need to change this cultural violence that is taking over.

Yep. I just posted this story on my website yesterday after watching the video. Completely disgusting. I emailed the top people at UCLA along with the Chief and Captain of campus police. All the email addresses are in my post if you're interested.