Don't Slur Me, Bro

I never felt much sympathy for the Iranian-American student who refused to show his Bruin ID to UCLA campus cops one late night in November 2006. Mostafa Tabatabainejad, dubbed here “T-man,” got repeatedly tased for his trouble as he screamed to the better-behaved students crowding around him in Powell Library: “Don’t let me be the only martyr!”

Nor did I get all warm and fuzzy thinking about the actions that night of the impulsive cop Terrence Duren, who arrived at Powell Library on a testosterone high. Duren confronted the dumb-ass, Ghandi-quoting student as he was trying to leave the library. A little bit of strategy on the cop’s part would have avoided the nasty, high-profile case captured for all the world to see on the university’s security cameras for YouTube.

But you were one sorry, anti-cop, knee-jerk liberal if you instinctively jumped to the defense of T-man. Not because he yelled, “Fuck your fucking Patriot Act,” which may sound redundant but is actually a valid criticism at any hour, but because his problems that night would have gone away had he simply pulled out his BruinCard from his wallet. This dude’s overreaction because he mistakenly believed that he had fallen victim to racial profiling by a student community officer at 11:15 p.m. should have given off enough warning signs from here to Guantánamo Bay that all was not what it seemed to be.

It only gets worse.

Now, 16 months later, some of the T-Man’s flaws may run deeper than the usual character ones on display that November night, and could even interfere with his efforts to strike it rich with a many-million-dollar lawsuit.

T-man, it seems, suffers from more than the bipolar disorder that hospitalized him for the first half of 2006. He doesn’t care much for Jews, particularly Jewish attorneys. It looks like attorney Paul Hoffman, who was once the ACLU’s legal director in Los Angeles, couldn’t take the anti-Semitism anymore. “[I] have had to endure insults and other statements that are completely unacceptable. These insults have been deeply personal and offensive and have contributed to the irreconcilable differences between [T-man] and his family and current counsel,” wrote Hoffman, in an October 26, 2007 request for the judge to allow him to drop T-man’s case.

In his court filings, Hoffman does not mention any anti-Jewish comments, and writes that his specific issue with T-man should remain a confidential attorney-client matter. Sources, however, confirm the nature of T-man’s bigoted behavior. Hoffman did not return five phone calls over the past several weeks. Unsuccessful efforts to reach T-man included an ExpressMail letter sent to his home in Citrus Heights.

It is too much to demand that so-called victims of bad-ass cops be of a saintlier caliber? Not model citizens, but at least tolerant supporters of human rights for all. According to Hoffman’s filings, the problems with T-man, who became his client in December 2006, started off well enough but had worsened by last September. On September 19, T-man fired Hoffman “without warning or discussion,” and told him to send the case file to Yagman and Yagman and Reichmann, the Venice firm of tax-fraud convict Stephen Yagman and Marion Yagman. Two days later, Hoffman delivered the change of attorney notice to the Yagman firm. But on September 28, nine days after firing Hoffman, T-man pleaded to have him back on the case.

Hoffman gave in, even though he had grown tired of T-man’s consulting Stephen Yagman and other attorneys and second-guessing him. By this point, T-man’s mental health had become so shaky that Hoffman sought to have his sister, Shirin Tabatabai, appointed guardian last October. But Magistrate Judge Victor B. Kenton denied the request, citing the lack of psychiatric testimony. In the interim, UCLA’s attorneys and Hoffman convened a confidential mediation session before rent-a-judge Lourdes Baird, the former U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles. T-man was too sick to attend. Instead, his sister and a brother filled in for him. The session appeared to be the last straw for Hoffman:

“[I] was verbally assaulted and demeaned in a highly offensive and personal manner based on the advice given to [T-man] and his family members. It also became apparent that [T-man] and his family members were incapable of rational discussion and decision-making relating to this case and to the preparation of the case for trial or settlement.”

OK, some sympathy is in order for Hoffman. But I’ll bet you a copy of The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. that he had more than righting wrongs on his mind when he signed onto this case. He was also seeing piles of money. But if you’re a civil rights attorney, your main goal should be ridding society of an evil force. You should be a lawyer more like Dan Stormer, who for free represented JPL scientists who fought back the invasive forces of the federal government that wanted to do background checks on their credit history and sex lives in the name of national security. And you should be less like the greedy billable-hour monsters from Jones Day who rang up a $1.5 million tab preparing for L.A. firefighter Tennie Pierce’s discrimination trial, which ended in a settlement. The legal battles most worth fighting have nothing to do with money, which is one reason so few topnotch lawyers take on civil-rights cases.

Judge Stephen Wilson allowed Hoffman to dump T-man last November 19; at a December 10 hearing, T-man’s new attorney, Graham LippSmith, showed up. A new trial date has been set for July 15.

This civil suit is so unnecessary when it comes to serving the higher needs of society. The problem has been fixed. What went down in the Powell Library that night has been examined by one of the top independent investigators of police hijinks and misconduct, Merrick Bobb of the Police Assessment Resource Center. He was staff attorney for the Christopher Commission, which tore apart the LAPD in the days after the 1991 Rodney King beating and he’s poked at the Sheriff’s Department repeated excesses many times over the past decade.

He gave his 77-page report the amusing title, “A Bad Night at Powell Library: The Events of November 14, 2006,” and said his tale involves no heroes. He found that university police acted excessively and violated department policy. But he was also critical of T-man, which means the report may not lead to a slam-dunk for the aggrieved student at trial. He still has plenty of explaining to do.

In the meantime, maybe someone could turn the whole charade of civil disobedience into a cartoon, starring T-man, a senior majoring in Middle Eastern and North African studies and philosophy, who gets the shock of his student career. And stick to the same basic facts. He was born in the United States. He is not a Muslim but is of the B’hai religion. Trouble in the library began around 11:15 p.m. when a community service officer announced that he would be coming around to check BruinCards. When T-man refused, police were called. At one point, an officer placed his hand on T-man’s shoulder, which provoked him to say: “Don’t fucking touch me.” An officer then grabbed T-man’s arms. An officer can be seen on the videotape pressing a bright yellow object, identified as a X26 Taser made by Taser International Inc., against T-man’s stomach. Bobb’s report estimates that the taser was used 26 seconds after the officer arrived at the library.

T-man falls to the ground and goes limp. He refuses to stand, which annoys the officers. He tells them that he’s bipolar, prompting an officer to respond sarcastically that he didn’t know what that had to do with standing up. T-man was tased at least once while in handcuffs.

Wrote Bobb: “We recommend that [Mr. T] be counseled that his failure to comply with orders nonetheless provided a good reason for force to be legitimately used by police officers, even if the force employed in the particular instance was unnecessary, avoidable and excessive.”

Not a glorious night to watch the soaring heights of human conduct. But does anybody out there really want to see another multimillion-dollar verdict against a public institution? Too bad Hoffman refused to allow Bobb’s investigators to interview T-man. In times like these, truth means so much more than money.

The officers who responded that night to the UCLA library remain on the force. But there have been significant changes to policies.

In the 16 months since the showdown in Powell Library, a rational policy on taser use has been adopted by the UCLA campus police force. You won’t see campus cops zapping students willy-nilly if they refuse to show their BruinCard and go limp when you ask them to keep walking. “The biggest change is it won’t be used on passive resisters,” said Nancy Greenstein, the campus police department’s director of community services.

In the end, the changes that can be the sound outcomes of a successful civil-rights lawsuit have already been made. Society stands to gain nothing from T-man’s lawsuit. In fact, taxpayers and people who will face higher enrollment fees at the UC system are the ones who will suffer.

But T-man is still on the hook.

In his last official act recorded in the case file, Paul Hoffman placed a lien on any future settlement or verdict that might be coming T-man’s way.

Maybe the two of them can share some choice words on their way to the bank.

Sends insults or ammo to BigAl@lasniper.com.