Caution: Contains strong language and violence.

An incident late Tuesday night in which a UCLA student was stunned at least four times with a Taser has left the UCLA community questioning whether the university police officers’ use of force was an appropriate response to the situation.

Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a UCLA student, was repeatedly stunned with a Taser and then taken into custody when he did not exit the CLICC Lab in Powell Library in a timely manner. Community Service Officers had asked Tabatabainejad to leave after he failed to produce his BruinCard during a random check at around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.

UCPD Assistant Chief of Police Jeff Young said the checks are a standard procedure in the library after 11 p.m.

“Because of the safety of the students, we limit the use after 11 (p.m.) to just students, staff and faculty,” Young said.

Young said the CSOs on duty in the library at the time went to get UCPD officers when Tabatabainejad did not immediately leave, and UCPD officers resorted to use of the Taser when Tabatabainejad did not do as he was told.

A six-minute video showed Tabatabainejad audibly screaming in pain as he was stunned several times with a Taser, each time for three to five seconds. He was told repeatedly to stand up and stop fighting and was told that if he did not do so he would “get Tased again.”

Tabatabainejad was also stunned with the Taser when he was already handcuffed, said Carlos Zaragoza, a third-year English and history student who witnessed the incident.

“(He was) no possible danger to any of the police,” Zaragoza said. “(He was) getting shocked and Tasered as he was handcuffed.”

But Young said at the time the police likely had no way of knowing whether the individual was armed or that he was a student.

As Tabatabainejad was being dragged through the room by two officers, he repeated in a strained scream, “I’m not fighting you” and “I said I would leave.”

The officers used the “drive stun” setting in the Taser, which delivers a shock to a specific part of the body with the front of the Taser, Young said.

A Taser delivers volts of low-amperage energy to the body, causing a disruption of the body’s electrical energy pulses and locking the muscles, according to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union.

“It’s an electrical shock. … It causes pain,” Young said, adding that the drive stun would not likely demobilize a person or cause residual pain after the shock was administered.

But according to a study published in the Lancet Medical Journal in 2001, a charge of three to five seconds can result in immobilization for five to 15 minutes, which would mean that Tabatabainejad could have been physically unable to stand when the officers demanded that he do so.

“It is a real mistake to treat a Taser as some benign thing that painlessly brings people under control,” said Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney at the ACLU of Southern California.