Not a surprising comment frankly. The argument that "he broke some arbitrary rule and thus deserved to be arrested" is not a new argument. Of course, they don't mention that the "rules" are designed to insulate the politician in question from having to answer tough questions.
Was the guy who was tasered a jerk? Probably. But often, it takes a loudmouthed jerk to ask tough questions and not be knuckled under. In fact, several of this country's founders were the loudmouthed jerks of their day -- using the Miami-Dade Assistant County Attorney's reasoning, they deserved to be arrested for breaking the King's rules against "sedition in public," and if they were shot or skewered on a bayonet in the course of their arrest, it's their own fault for resisting the police.
A comparison with the founders of the United States does kind of put it in perspective, doesn't it? They weren't always "well behaved," but they had liberty and justice on their side. Maybe the guy interrupted someone inappropriately, or was too aggressive in his questioning. I didn't find him "noncoherent" (note to attorney: the correct term is "incoherent"), and I think the questions he was asking were exactly the kind of inconvenient queries that mainstream media reporters are typically too cowed to ask. That doesn't justify the police removing him by force for overstepping the rules of the event. As you say, these "rules" are arbitrary and generally designed to keep authority figures from being embarrassed. Sometimes they *need* to face a little embarrassment. It's not clear to me exactly why people at the event started clapping, but a few possibilities come to mind besides those already mentioned: (a) being at an event to see Kerry, most of them were Kerry supporters and they were angry to see him put on the spot by hostile questions; (b) a few people clapped, and the rest of the crowd joined in out of habit; (c) Kerry said something they agreed with; (d) the student said something they agreed with; (e) they were applauding his resisting the police; (f) they were just siding with the authority figures like sheep, without really thinking about it.
I've seen verbal disruptions happen lots of times at forums, and they are normally resolved without violence -- a speaker, the moderator, the crowd or some/all of the above will speak up and assert order if somebody gets too out of line. Police officers are supposed to be trained to resolve situations as nonviolently as possible. But these cops did just the opposite -- they immediately escalated the situation by physically grabbing the student, yelling at him, demanding he immediately do as he was told, etc., and then stepped way out of line by using a Taser on him. It's a sad commentary on our supposedly "free" society that people who are supposed to be public servants are so used to ordering people around, and so used to having their orders followed right away, that they can't handle it when someone doesn't cooperate. Even when there is no real threat, they tend to immediately act unprofessionally. Someone with more patience and greater respect for civil liberties and an open, vigorous dialogue probably could have defused the situation without ever laying a hand on the guy. Why were there so many cops standing around the mic in the first place? It's like they were just waiting for a chance to rough somebody up. Security overkill often makes people feel more confrontational than they would be normally. Put metal detectors in schools and kids may start bringing guns in just to get away with it. But I suppose that kind of negative feedback loop serves the interests of the authoritarians, because then they have an excuse to impose even *more* rules and punishments, thereby increasing their own power.
He may have been a jerk, but was definitely paranoid and most likely
crazy (i.e., unjustifiably paranoid).
In the 8-minute video I watched, he kept talking while Kerry was trying
to answer the questions; he yelled while he was around other people, but
was quiet and subdued when he didn’t realize there were cameras were
around; and he claimed he was going to be disappeared or executed for
asking these hard questions.
The police handled the situation extremely poorly; cutting off the
microphone would have been a much preferable option, and the taser was
abusive, unnecessary, and I hope actionable. But it definitely did not
seem to me that he was disrupting the event in any kind of useful or
even interesting way.