john kerry
09/18/2007
Andrew Meyer, College Student, Tasered During John Kerry Forum: The Video
University of Florida student Andrew Meyer seems a bit like your typical 21-year-old: young enough to think he knows everything and brash enough to try and prove it. His efforts to get a rise out of Senator John Kerry at this campus forum, peltering the 2004 presidential candidate with questions, are thus the actions of any brash young man. Given that colleges are full of brash young men, though, the University of Florida support staff should be used to dealing with them -- which is why their actions here feel more than a little out of line.
The Gainesville Sun's Kyle Mitchell gets up close and personal with this footage, tracking with Meyer as several security officers drag him away from the microphone and towards the back of the auditorium, where they subdue him, cuff him, and taser him -- all while Meyer shouts, "What did I do?" Perhaps Meyer was being a bit melodramatic, but that's no excuse for tasering a kid in khaki shorts, while he screams "Don't taser me, bro! Don't tase me!" Everyone may be overreacting in this clip -- but not everyone had tasers.
