CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / LOS ANGELES

UCLA said Friday that the university would pay $220,000 to settle a civil rights lawsuit filed by a student who was repeatedly stunned with a Taser gun by campus police after he refused to show his identification or leave the school library.

Mostafa Tabatabainejad, then a 23-year-old senior, was in the library in November 2006 when a security guard -- conducting a routine check to make sure those present after 11 p.m. were authorized to be there -- asked him to provide identification. Tabatabainejad, a U.S. citizen of Iranian descent, refused, saying later that he thought he was being singled out because of his Middle Eastern appearance.

When campus police arrived and asked him to leave, Tabatabainejad refused. Another student used a cellphone to shoot video of police shocking the student with the Taser, which was later posted online.

UCLA’s acting chancellor brought in a police accountability expert, who found that use of the Taser had violated department rules, and recommended changes, including a ban on Tasers in cases of “passive resistance,� that campus police later adopted.

-- Gale Holland