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LONDON, Ont. - Officials at the University of Western Ontario in this southwestern Ontario city are defending the violent arrest of a student captured on a video circulating on YouTube. The video shows the student being held down in a campus building on Wednesday and pummelled by at least five campus and city police officers. Officers are seen kneeing the student aggressively in the torso, beating him on the back with batons and punching him hard up to a dozen times. At least one officer is heard yelling "Stop resisting," and then, "Give us your arm." Elgin Austen, the head of campus police, told a news conference Thursday that by the time he arrived during the arrest, he didn't see "anything out of order" with the level of force being applied. "It was being conducted consistent with the Ontario Police College and the training that officers have there." He added that people seeing just the video alone "may not understand what the officers were actually doing." "What the officers were doing was trying to apprehend a strong individual ... and not injure that person and keep other people around safe." Austen said the incident began on the seventh and eighth floors of the social sciences building, well before the video was shot. He said the suspect "was creating safety concerns" on the upper floors and had barricaded himself inside a room. "Eventually, everything came down to the main floor," where efforts were made to subdue a "disoriented individual." The student, described as about 6 foot 2 inches and more than 200 pounds, was taken to hospital for observation, then released into custody. Charged with mischief under $5,000, assaulting a peace officer, resisting arrest and escaping lawful custody is Irnes Zeljkovic, of London. University spokeswoman Gitta Kulczycki added that the incident needs to be kept in context. The main concern of police was protecting students and faculty, she said. "The view of the video itself is somewhat disturbing without knowing the context of the full situation," she said. "In terms of what were the officers trying to do - let's recognize what was occurring." Kulczycki said an automatic review is conducted in situations like these. "We will certainly co-operate fully with London police as that occurs," she said. The video can be viewed at:
The university release says the suspect then “continued to fight violently and would not allow himself to be handcuffed” and continued to fight after being handcuffed and led outside. “The resistance continued after the individual was transported to hospital.”
I was there. He had it coming.
Good enough for me.....
What - no TASERS??!!MM
There a simple solution, when the cops show up:a. Stop what you're doing,b. Do what they tell you.If you can't follow these simple steps, you're probably an idiot and may get treated like one.
The Observer Four young London men who say it was stupid to take cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy to Pinery Provincial Park were fined $300 each in Sarnia court Friday. XXX XXXX, 19, pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine, XXXXX XXXXX, 22, and XXXX XXXXX, 20, pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana and Irnes Zeljkovic, 21, pleaded guilty to possession of ecstasy. The group were arrested after park wardens checked a vehicle parked in an unusual spot at 1 a.m. on May 17, 2008, a holiday weekend. One men was clutching a bag containing about one gram of cocaine. A search of the vehicle and nearby ground produced a few grams of marijuana and 24 ecstasy tablets. It was a joint venture and all of them should be treated equally, said federal prosecutor Michael Robb. Defence lawyer Robert McFadden said they are all bright young men with promising careers ahead of them, but they agreed it was a weekend of stupidity. Three are in college or university and the fourth is self-employed and expected to assume a role in the family
I hear outraged students are presently holding a "Youtube Sit-in" in protest to this case of possible police brutality. It involves a 5 min Youtube video of several concerned student activists sitting down blocking a unknown school hallway. They state that this video will continue playing in a loop until such time as the jackbooted security fascists are punished and their obvious greatness is publicly acknowledged.As it stands now, the video has not had many hits and their have been no reports of hindered passage in any of UWO's hallways.
Thanks for that info Tommy, that was pretty much what I was expecting to hear... it's too bad that the mainstream media hasn't made that link, have they?
Update:"Student in YouTube arrest likely to sue: His lawyer Phil Millar said Wednesday his client will probably sue the university, London police and campus police over the arrest. Zeljkovic is now in a psychiatric hospital, where he doesn't appear to be faring well, said Millar."
The student's father, Merzuk Zeljkovic, said his son has no recollection of the arrest.
