Abuse of Authority: Exploration of Two Incidents

In today’s society, the excessive use and abuse of force is still an existing controversy. In this project the main adjective was to look at two incidents that have occurred in past years and pinpoint if there was any indication of abuse of authority. One which was the controversial Rodney King case that caused uproar in the civil rights activist community and a case that many are not so familiar with such as the Andrew Meyer case. In both cases, it appeared that there was evidence of abuse of authority. In both videos, it showed people of different ethnicity, settings and predicaments that set the tone for each video. Each video can be argued; “Well they should not have resisted”; while others can argue “it was just too excessive for there

In this video, Meyer’s was attending a forum held by senator Kerry in which he asked a few questions and made a few statements. Yes, Meyer’s began to get a little irate and problematic; which in return they cut his mic. Some could argue “he should have taken that as a que to walk away and not to continue his rant” this is very true; but it still gave the officers no right to handled him so roughly as if he was a crazed murder, or if he had made some sort of death threat to senator Kerry. In the video two officers approached Andrew in a very ambushing way, which would make one come to a defense mode right away. As Mr. Meyer was carried away you can hear him yelling “Why am I being arrested”; confusion, fear and anger can instantly be felt by Andrews remarks. As he was thrown to the ground the audience can hear him say “please don’t tase me”; in the audience, someone yells “he has the taser on his chest”. One can only imagine the fearful thoughts that could have passed through Andrew’s mind. In the video, suddenly a zap is heard and Andrew’s yell echoed through the auditorium. In this case abuse of authority was shown when they took away Mr. Meyer’s amendment of freedom of speech. In no instance did Andrew make a threat to the senator or any of the audience; in this case, no police should have been involved if there was no indication of endangerment to himself or others. Also, right away they put their