As I crowded in among the dozens of cameras and reporters at a press conference that preceded Friday’s protest against UCPD’s repeated use of a Taser on a student in Powell Library, I found that one of the more fascinating aspects of the media frenzy was not just the story itself, but the direction in which reporters were pushing for it to go.
As both local and national reporters swooped in on the handful of UCLA students leading the protest, they repeatedly echoed questions of race that were brought up by Mostafa Tabatabainejad’s lawyer, Stephen Yagman.
The Taser usage and video footage seems like enough of a story in itself. Only further investigation will reveal whether the repeated use, allegedly after the student was already handcuffed, will qualify as police brutality and excessive use of force – though it is clear that such a judgment has already been rendered in the minds of many UCLA students.
But a large portion of the interest shown by media at the protest centered on the issue of race. The students involved, who ranged from representatives of USAC to the presidents of the Muslim Student Association and Amnesty International at UCLA, were careful to avoid giving merit to the claims of racial profiling – and commendably so.
Instead, they steered the debate away from such speculation, only mentioning religion when clarifying that Tabatabainejad is not Muslim, but Baha’i.
Protest organizer Combiz Abdolrahimi said the race or religion of Tabatabainejad was not “important or relevant” to their purposes in protesting.
“We are calling for an independent investigation ... that voices safety concerns of students,” Abdolrahimi said.
But Yagman told the Daily Bruin that Tabatabainejad did not show his BruinCard because he believed he was being singled out in an incident of racial profiling. To his knowledge, Tabatabainejad was the only person who was asked to show ID, he said.
However, while several witnesses have confirmed that they were not asked to show identification, doing a random check for identification is routine.
The Community Service Officer had been doing the check for about five to 10 minutes prior to the incident, said David Remesnitsky, who was in Powell’s CLICC lab at the time of the incident.
Though they weren’t consistently checking through that period of time, Tabatabainejad was not the only one who was checked for identification, he added.
Moreover, Yagman’s statement implies that the responsibility for such racial profiling would lie with those who were checking BruinCards: UCLA students acting in their capacity as CSOs.
I decided to ask Sabiha Ameen, president of MSA, if she has experienced racial profiling within the UCLA community.
Ameen said she hasn’t experienced significant racial profiling at UCLA, adding that questions regarding her religion or choice to wear a head scarf usually come out of “ignorance rather than racism.”
Indeed, any personal experience with a tense environment regarding race or incidents of racial profiling have occurred outside of UCLA, she said.
Though large-scale racial incidents seem relatively rare at UCLA, the concept that the incident was racially motivated seems to be a quick sell. The idea has even reached the Iranian government, who issued a statement regarding the “quite normal” violations of minorities’ rights by American police.
But determining the extent to which excessive force was used will be a long, complex process, and any question of racial profiling will be even more so.
E-mail Mishory at jmishory@media.ucla.edu.