Gainesville, Fla. – A University of Florida student with a history of taping his own practical jokes was subdued with a stun gun by campus police after loudly and repeatedly trying to ask U.S. Sen. John Kerry questions during a campus forum.
Andrew Meyer, 21, spent a night in jail before his release Tuesday morning. He had no comment when he left. His attorney, Robert Griscti, did not return messages seeking comment.
Videos of the Monday night incident, posted on several websites and played on TV news, show university police pulling Meyer away from the microphone as he resists and Kerry says he’ll answer the student’s question.
University spokesman Steve Orlando said Meyer was asked to leave the microphone after his allotted time was up. As Meyer continued to resist, police stunned him with a Taser.
Meyer was arrested on suspicion of resisting an officer and disturbing the peace, according to jail records, but the State Attorney’s Office had yet to make the formal charging decision.
University president J. Bernard Machen issued a statement saying he has asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the arrest.
Kerry said he regretted that a healthy discussion was interrupted and that he never had a dialogue end that way in 37 years of public appearances. He also said he hoped neither the student nor police were injured.
Meyer has his own website, and it contains several “comedy” videos he appears in. In one, he stands in a street with a sign that says “Harry Dies” after the latest Harry Potter book was released. In another, he acts like a drunk while trying to pick up a woman in a bar.
