Tuesday, a student at the University of Florida, sparked a national media frenzy when officers of the University of Florida Police Department attempted to subdue him using a Taser, a nonlethal weapon, during a question and answer session with Sen. John Kerry.

While I certainly support Andrew Meyer’s First Amendment rights, I’m also a fan of fair play, common sense and obeying direct orders from police. To find out what really happened, I used the magic of YouTube to watch the entire incident from a variety of angles.What follows is what I saw.

First, according to reports from the Independent Florida Alligator, the last question already had been announced, but Meyer approached the microphone regardless.

Instead of asking the senator a question, Meyer spent his entire minute of allotted time ranting about how the 2004 election was stolen and ignored requests to stop after his time was up.

After nearly a minute and a half of profanity-laced invective, he finally asked Kerry why the senator conceded the 2004 election, but without waiting for a response, Meyer launched into more ranting over the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Kerry’s membership in the Skull and Bones Society.

Meyer had gone over his allotted time by 45 seconds. The microphone was cut. Three campus police officers approached him, firmly pushing him away from the microphone, but Meyer wouldn’t quit.

He fell on the floor and refused to move, resisting the attempts of the police to arrest him and ignoring their requests to “stop moving.”

After a minute of continuing to resist arrest and flailing about, the guards warned Meyer to stop or Taser, prompting Meyer to shout “Don’t Tase me, bro,” but he continued to struggle and hurl obscenities.

Finally, the police decided to use the Taser. Throughout the entire incident, Meyer’s rights were not abrogated at any point.

In a public forum, participants must obey the rules set for asking questions, which Meyer decided to ignore.

From my own experience attending forums with politicians, audience members should be polite, use the time allotted for personal questions and obey the organizers of the event, especially security personnel.

I think Meyer clearly was not interested in asking questions since he never waited for Kerry to respond.

His conduct throughout the entire incident was outrageous and over-the-top, but once police told him to stop and he began to resist arrest, his actions became dangerous.

The police repeatedly warned him to stop, and Meyer chose to ignore them.

Unfortunately, some left-wing pundits have begun castigating the police for alleged “brutality.”

Some even have suggested the police acted because Meyer was criticizing Bush.

Nonsense. Although every other questioner followed the rules, the attention-seeking Meyer believed he could get away with a blatant publicity stunt.

I think his email address, famouswriterman@aol.com, which was mentioned in the New York Times’ “The Lede” blog, speaks volumes about his ego.

Now, using edited clips of the incident, some have already begun the campaign to cast Meyer as a martyr. Don’t let it happen. Get online and watch the full video.

Kudos to Sen. Kerry for remaining cool during the incident and for the police officers who reacted with appropriate force. As for Meyer, let’s hope this incident gave him a jolt of common sense.

- Chris Chiego is a junior from Memphis, Tenn., majoring in history and international affairs.