By snoadmin
UPDATE – 3:48 P.M. Unconfirmed reports say that the suspect in Thursday’s Tasering incident was a Cal State Long Beach student. More information as it develops.
An unidentified white male was electroshocked with a Taser and taken into custody Thursday afternoon near the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on campus after witnesses said the suspect was causing a disturbance and refusing to cooperate with University Police.
University Police said they would not provide the official police report to reporters because the case is pending with the city attorney for criminal prosecution.
One witness, Alicia Gonzalez, a junior journalism major, said that prior to his arrest, around 2 p.m. the suspect began using racist slurs and verbally harassing a group of four Muslim students who were sitting in front of the coffee shop.
Gonzalez said the suspect, who appeared to be in his 20s, used profanity and said that the country is a “Christian nation” and that they didn’t belong in it.
Initially the small group ignored the suspect, but after a second verbal confrontation from the suspect and him pounding his fists on their table, one of the accosted students alerted nearby officers inside the Coffee Bean. The officers approached the suspect to calm him down, but the suspect remained verbally confrontational and later took off his shirt.
At one point, according to Gonzalez, the suspect told the officers to either arrest him or shoot him or else he would leave. A group of about 50 students watched the incident.
According to Toni Beron, a university spokeswoman, the suspect charged and struck one of the officers. Backup was called in, the officer showed the suspect his Taser, and then he issued a warning.
The suspect threatened the officer again, at which point a projectile from the Taser was shot into the stomach of the suspect, voltage was deployed and the suspect fell to the floor.
Paramedics were called in, and once the suspect could be moved, according to Beron, he was handcuffed and taken down to squad cars parked on the East Campus Turnaround. A Long Beach Fire Department truck was also called to the scene.
Gregory Rangel, a senior political science major who also works in the emergency room of a Long Beach hospital and witnessed part of the incident, said it was a “standard EMT response.”
According to police reports, the same suspect also was cited for a hit-and-run accident at around noon after he ran a red light on Palo Verde and hit another car while coming into Lot 11. He abandoned his vehicle – a pickup truck – but was later apprehended by University Police, turned over to the LBPD and then cited.
A campuswide e-mail alert sent around 4:20 p.m. Thursday by Doug Robinson, vice president of Student Services, said,-“Paramedics informed the officers that the suspect is considered mentally ill and has been prescribed medications, although he is not taking them.”
The suspect, according to Beron, has been taken to a local hospital and is being treated for medical and psychiatric evaluation. No further information about the suspect, including his age or residency, has been released as of Monday afternoon.
University Police are equipped with the Taser X26, which, according to Taser’s company website, “uses a replaceable cartridge containing compressed nitrogen to deploy two small probes that are attached to the Taser X26 by insulated conductive wires with a maximum length of 35 feet (10.6 meters). The Taser X26 transmits electrical pulses along the wires and into the body affecting the sensory and motor functions of the peripheral nervous system. The energy can penetrate up to two cumulative inches of clothing, or one inch per probe.”
Gonzalez said one of the Muslims told her the following after the suspect’s arrest: “The guy had no right to disrespect us, [but] we forgive him.”
