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An apology

On September 17, a UF student named Andrew Meyer spoke out of turn and caused a disruption at a town hall forum with Sen. John Kerry. He resisted removal by UFPD officers and was Tasered into submission. The subsequent investigation found that the police officers were involved were justified in their actions. Meyer has been disciplined and has just issued several statements of apology. I feel that I owe an apology as well.

I saw a video of the Tasering incident on the evening of the 17th, a few hours after it occurred. I was sickened to see a college student like myself screaming in pain, to the horror of the rest of the audience, for apparently exercising his right to ask the Senator some hard-hitting questions. The footage frightened me to the point that I could hardly sleep. I knew I had to do something because I did not feel safe on the campus of UF.

The next day, I joined a few hundred concerned students in a march that went to UFPD headquarters and the hall where the president of the university was to give a press conference on the incident. It was then that I first heard differing opinions: Meyer was a jerk; he broke the rules; he got what he deserved. Those opinions, I believed, didn’t stand a chance vis-à-vis the right of free speech. During the protests, I made the difficult decision to skip a history class. I figured that my professor would sympathize with my attempts at citizenship.

When he told me he didn’t, I was fazed. And over the days that followed, the facts — the backstory — came in. Meyer had long proclaimed his love for attention. When the cameras were off, the officers alleged, he was cooperative and even friendly. I was fazed. Battles ensued on the local editorial pages: I read letters saying that the officers were right to arrest someone disrupting a public event. They were right to Tase him because he had become a trespasser when he refused to leave.

As a consequence, they said, his speech was not free, in the same vein as threatening to kill someone or yelling fire in a crowded theater. And now, the officers involved in Tasering and arresting Meyer have been exonerated. Since the hoopla has apparently died down, Meyer has found it to be a good time to apologize for his actions. So have I.

I was wrong. I was wrong for being led by my emotions while failing to consider the facts and the law. I apologize to everyone that my actions have affected: my parents, my professor, the friends who have had to deal with me. They were right. The person who erased “I Support Andrew Meyer, Not Police Brutality” from the whiteboard on my door was right. I should have remembered that free speech is not black and white in the same way that the world is not black and white. Under the influence of emotion — the enemy of reason — I failed to see this, and for that, I am sorry. I feel like a fool.

I hope that I’ve learned something and become a better person from this experience, so that when the police really do overstep their authority, I’ll know to be there, marching on the front lines.