The taser and it's after-effects

I'm really not sure what to think about this issue.

An Iranian-American student from UCLA was recently asked to show his ID card to campus police as part of a 'random inspection' - well, that's what they said it was. He refused because he felt it was some form of racism - picking him out instead of someone else. When he refused, the police used a taser on him. When the first shock didn't stop him, the shocked him again. They did they several times until he was barely able to move and they were able to eject him.

My immediate thoughts were 'that's excessive force'. Repeatedly asking the guy to stand up after shocking him with electricity, when they could have just dragged him outside. Did he have a weapon? There wasn't an obvious one and I'm not sure that the officers looked. Was he physically attacking someone? No. Was he shouting? Yes Is that a reason to get shocked by a taser? No - well, not in my opinion. He wasn't a suspected terrorist or anything like that - he was just refusing to show a simple ID card.

However, after reading several news articles and comments on the articles I began to look at things from the police officers' point of view aswell. Repeatedly refusing to do what a police officer says and causing a noticeable disruption. There's also the fact that the random inspection must be some sort of university policy and there must be documentation about it somewhere that the students know about. If he had just shown his card, all this could have been avoided.

Although it's the least likely possibility, the racial angle could be true - it's difficult to prove that one though.

I guess both sides were at fault. The student was foolish for not complying with university regulations and police orders and the police officers seem to be at fault for using excessive force.

The following links are just some of the articles that I read:

Mercury News
ABC News
USA Today
Hot Air.com
laist

I'd also be interested in other perspectives. What do you think? Do you think both sides were at fault? Were the police to blame? Was the student solely responsible? Is it too difficult to draw a conclusion?