University of Florida student, Andrew Meyer, got tasered at Kerry forum

Update 9/19: Times Online UK newspaper gives a great title. Andrew Meyer, the student who begged: 'Don't Tase me bro!', becomes internet star (yuck!)

Mr Kerry has criticised the arrest of Mr Meyer, suggesting that he could have dealt with the heckler himself.

"In 37 years of public appearances, through wars, protests and highly emotional events, I have never had a dialogue end this way. I believe I could have handled the situation without interruption,” he said.

Did anyone trademark 'Don't Tase me, bro'? I rather want to introduce a new slogan 'Tase me, make me famous' t-shirt.

Andrew Meyer is an idiot, plain and simple. A practical jokster and intent to cause undue publicity just to get his name and face in the paper. Sure, he had the right to question Kerry, but his behavior and attitude were despicable. How can we have civil discourse if Meyer was on a rant?

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A protest march, a sit-in, meetings with University leaders...

We all seen the videos. Andrew Meyer, a UF telecommunication senior, was shot with a Taser gun at Sen. John Kerry's forum on the UF campus Monday after he tried to get out of the grips of UF police officers, who were attempting to escort him from the auditorium. When he continued to resist, one of the campus officers used his taser.

At first, it seemed that Andrew Meyer was trying to ask the Senator a question during a Q&A period following Kerry's speech.

It seems that there is more than meets the eye concerning Andrew Meyer. Most of the videos showing the arrest and tasering of Meyer do not show the whole incident which started well before it.

Here are two eyewitness reports:

UF law school student, Justin J. Klatsky

“As much as I concur that this was excessive force, let me remind you what led to this:

Andrew spoke up after the Dean of International Affairs had stated final question. The final question was being asked about Israel, and then Andrew got on the mic on the other side of the room (noting he was next on the mic), and then proceeded to tell Kerry that its not fair not to be able to ask more questions after listening to him for an hour, and the Dean exclusively asking Kerry questions for another 45 minutes, leaving students 25 minutes to ask questions. At that point, the officers try to subdue him, but Kerry sternly told the police officers to back down. Kerry then asked Meyer if he can finish the other question and then proceed to his. Meyer consented. After the last question was answered, Kerry asked Meyer, what is your question. Then you enter the video that has been circulating around, where he asks his question, not before Accent Speaker’s Bureau president, Stephen Blank (in some videos, front row left side of right aisle), signals the AV guys to cut Meyer off. Meyer then was confused what happened, and then was dragged up the auditorium. Meyer kept screaming why is he being arrested. The other videos do not show that Meyer was handcuffed, before he was tasered. I sat in the back row, with this occuring less than 5 feet from me."

UF student Tyler Antar

So I went to the John Kerry town hall forum this morning trying to get students registered to vote. I run a student government organization called Chomp the Vote. Anyway I went inside to watch the event. Senator Kerry took the podium and began delivering a speech about the Middle East, Iraq, dimplomacy, etc. Anyway, after he was done, a university ambassador asked Kerry a few premade questions. Once that was over, Senator Kerry announced he would take questions from the students. There were two microphones placed on each side of the aisle. One on my side and the other on Andrew Meyer’s side. Senator Kerry began answering the student’s questions from each aisle. Eventually it was announced that there would only be a few more questions answered. Since Meyer and I were both in the back of each line, it did not seem likely that our questions would be answered.

However, while Senator Kerry was responding to a student’s question, all of a sudden Meyer rushed to the microphone with cops in pursuit. At that point no one knew what was going on. Could he have a gun, a bomb? Immediately, Meyer began yelling into the microphone that he had been waiting in line forever and that Senator Kerry should “spend time to answer everyone’s questions!” Senator Kerry tried to calm the student down by telling him that he would “stay here as long as it takes to get the questions answered.” The police approached Meyer who began taunting them by saying “what! are you going to taser me? are you going to arrest me?!” The police grabbed Meyer, but Senator Kerry asked the
police to let him go and that he would answer his question. Senator Kerry finished answering the other student’s question and then proceeded with Meyer. (*This entire scene is not in any video I can find so far. This is why 2 cops are seen right behind Meyer at the start of some videos*).

Meyer approached the microphone and began to talk about a book he had which stated that Kerry won the 2004 election because of disenfranchisement of black voters and faulty voter machines that produced “Bush” as the winner. He then posed another question about why President Bush had not been impeached. “President Clinton was impeached because of a blowjob, why not Bush?”. The third and strangest question he posed to Senator Kerry was asking him if he was part of the skull and bones society with Bush at
Yale. Meyer’s mic cut off after that, probably because he had mentioned the word “blowjob”. The cops grabbed him, but Meyer was able to get away several times. Eventually more cops were brought in to help subdue Meyer. Meyer continued to resist arrest, scream, curse; however he was enventually subdued by about six cops up around the entrance. As he is on the ground, he is told several times to put his hands around his back. He is also warned that he will be tasered if he does not comply. Eventually he is tasered twice. The video does not show whether he complied or not.

Senator Kerry was trying to answer his question to the audience, mostly the one about faulty voter machines. I am a die hard conservative Republican but I do respect Senator Kerry for trying to soothe the situation as best he could and trying not to escalate the situation. He DID intervene by letting the student at least present his question. I never received an opportunity to ask my question, but when Senator Kerry ended the show after the Meyer incident, he did come off stage to shake hands and give autographs. At that point, I was able to ask him my question, shake his hand, and get a autograph at the same time. Now why couldn’t Andrew Meyer do that?

I don’t know if this is relevant or not, but Andrew Meyer is a former sports writer for the school newspaper The Alligator. In his columns, he has been known to make ridiculous statements in order to gain attention for himself. Was today a publicity stunt?

The video above started when they cut off his microphone.

Another angle, longer video.

This link points to NBC Channel 6 video that shows more before the officers moved in.

Now it would seem that he wanted to get arrested. He wanted the campus police to move in because he was acting in a provocative manner. The officers tried to escort him, and he reacted violently.

According to students and his previous writings, it would seem he loves getting attention for his rants and sometimes unreasonable statements. If you check his web site, he is already milking his 15 minutes worth of fame.

Also, in the police incident report, the officer who actually tasered Andrew Meyer wrote in the report that Meyer later told police, “You didn’t do anything wrong.” In the 12-page report, which gives accounts of the incident from the perspective of eight different officers who were present Monday afternoon, Officer Nicole Mallo writes that Meyer would only resist officers when cameras were present. “As (Meyer) was escorted down stairs (at the University Auditorium) with no cameras in sight, he remained quiet, but once the cameras made their way down stairs he started screaming and yelling again,” Mallo wrote.

Here is a web site with old columns written by Andrew Meyer. It would seem he is in constant need of attention.

Of course, using the taser was not necessary. I really think the 4-5 campus officers can drag him out of the auditorium.

Other accounts showed that Meyer was clearly agitated when Kerry ended the Q&A period. There was approximately 20 people in line for the microphone including Meyer. Kerry answered 8 questions. After that, the rest of the people in line for the microphone went back to their seats, except for Meyer, who forced himself on the microphone and demanded Kerry to let him give his question.

As for freedom of speech, it was clear he wanted to question Kerry all by himself. He was making his rant, and even failed to let Kerry answer his questions, but then he kept on going. It would seem he just wanted the microphone to voice his theories and stories. He did want Kerry to answer, he wanted him and the rest of the audience to listen to him.

Whoever made the call to turn off the microphone realized Meyer was just not going to stop talking.

Didn't he have someone there with a video camera to film him questioning Kerry? It would seem he had a plan to let this whole thing happened. Clarissa Jessup, who was standing near Andrew Meyer, told police that he asked her to film him asking Kerry a question just before he approached the microphone.

Oh, by the way, here's his mugshot:

Here's a more detailed police report

He has been detained for inciting a riot and disrupting a school function at the University Auditorium.

As for his rallying cry "Don't Tase Me bro" - how about "Tase me, make me famous!"

Star Banner - Tasering spurs protest march, sit-in

Colbert mentions about the tasering on The Word segment