Posted on 11/15/2007 5:39:32 PM PST by fanfan
VANCOUVER — Revulsion, anger, sadness and support have greeted the release of a video showing a Polish immigrant’s confrontation with RCMP at Vancouver International Airport, an encounter that ended in his death.
Millions of people around the world have watched the video of Robert Dziekanski’s final moments on the Internet or TV via Canadian broadcasters and foreign outlets such as CNN, ABC and BBC.
Traveller Paul Pritchard of Victoria, arriving in Canada from China, shot the footage of the Oct. 14 incident but it was not released until Wednesday evening.
The video, which spread globally within hours, triggered thousands of email responses to media outlets and filled Internet blog sites both criticizing and supporting police actions.
It also created a political storm, with opposition politicians demanding a full-blown review of Taser use and ministers warning against a rush to judgment.
“I think we should wait until all the evidence is in,” B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal said while attending a meeting of provincial justice ministers in Winnipeg.
Public reaction to what some commentators have compared with the videotaped Rodney King beating in Los Angeles has been strong and varied.
“I was truly shocked and saddened by this terrible incident at the airport,” a reader wrote to The Canadian Press.
“Why was the Taser used at all?”
Wrote an Alberta man referring to the RCMP: “Mr. Dziekanski was posing no threat to these Rambo wannabes.
“Reach for your wallets folks because by the time the lawyers get through with these liars we will all be paying big bucks in a settlement.”
One comment posted on the Globe and Mail’s website read: “RCMP — A farce to reckon with.”
Added someone who identified himself as Dolby Thomas from Calgary: “This man did not deserve to die.”
“It is very shameful that our so called `finest’ can act like a bunch of hyenas, just out for a kill,” wrote one man at the PolishForum.com. “There must be a public inquiry into this. Robert Dziekanski could have been any of us.”
“I hope those RCMP officers never go on a day without thinking of the innocent they killed,” said another posting on the forum.
However, another reader wrote The Canadian Press to say it was not necessary to criticize police for doing exactly what they’ve been hired to do.
“We as citizens of this city, province, country and world rely on the efforts of the RCMP ... to protect us from those viewed as a threat to our safety.”
The video of Dziekanski’s last minutes alive could be found on the Internet everywhere from YouTube to the websites of Australia’s The Daily Telegraph.
Some people criticized the media’s widespread distribution of the video, which ends with a man in a suit bending over a now still Dziekanski to see if he has a pulse.
“I’m disgusted at Yahoo and the press for showing this video,” said someone identified as Langille-Mic posting on Yahoo.ca’s news site.
“Give the man’s family some respect. They don’t need to be reminded of this unfortunate situation by the public’s need to view others’ misfortunes. Society is crumbling!”
Piotr Ogrodzinski, Poland’s ambassador to Canada, said Thursday that he was shocked by the video and said Canada’s ambassador to Poland will meet with Polish officials on Monday.
“It requires answers immediately,” Ogrodzinski told The Associated Press. “The video creates a strong impression that the police officers’ reaction was not suitable to the circumstances.”
Ogrodzinski said Dziekanski appeared helpless and made no move that would indicate that he was trying to hit anybody.
“It is really shocking. It’s so sad,” he said.
The video drew strong exchanges in the House of Commons.
Liberal Bonnie Brown said Canadians want answers after seeing the extremely disturbing video.
“Is it standard operating procedure for the RCMP to use Tasers when there is no obvious physical threat?” she asked.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said he had already asked for a review related to the use of Tasers — something he did with little fanfare four days after Dziekanski died — and said both RCMP and the independent public complaints commission are investigating the death.
New Democrat public safety critic Penny Priddy said it made no sense that the RCMP is investigating itself.
“Has the government not learned lessons from the RCMP pension scandal, the Arar affair or the Ian Bush case?” Priddy asked, reminding politicians of recent RCMP controversies.
Oppal said he was shocked by the newly released video but still supported the use of Tasers.
“I think our system is based on fairness and I would want to hear what the police side of the incident is before any of us rush to judgment,” he said.
B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell said he had not seen the entire video but called it disturbing.
“I think the important thing is to recognize first of all it’s a human tragedy, it’s going to affect everyone that’s involved in it,” he said.
“There are four separate investigations taking place right now. Obviously we want to find out how we can do much better in the future.”
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion told reporters in Victoria he had not seen the video but he called for the Mounties to review their use of the weapon.
Dion stopped short of calling for an all-out ban on Tasers.
“We know that the RCMP are reviewing the use of the Taser and this must be done because of unfortunate accidents and I want to carry the sympathy of our party to the family,” Dion said. “This unacceptable situation should be corrected.”
Liberal public safety critic Ujjal Dosanjh said an RCMP review of Taser policy is not enough.
“While we understand the need of law enforcement to be able to subdue suspects in dangerous situations, Mr. Dziekanski’s tragic death and other incidents have led to questions about whether Tasers are being used appropriately,” he said in a news release.
Clear guidelines for the use of Tasers need to be formulated, said Dosanjh.
I think that they should consider a gun as lethal force and a tazor as a not so lethal force.
There should be as much internal investigation when a tazor is used as there is when a gun is used.
ping
Was there a need to use a taser in this case? He didn’t have a knife or a gun. Why not just tackle or use some sort of tear gas?
Although the media has jumped to that verdict, I'd wait for the full facts to emerge before coming to that conclusion.
i agree ArmstedFragg, i ran across this article earlier this year...it sounds like it could be what really happened.
Keep in mind also, that - according to Polish media - that was his first fly by plane ever in his life, and he traveled overseas, which probably took him another several hours (+ the time he spent at the airport.
There was no justification for this whatsoever. The cops walk in, the man backs off and puts up his hands up and they zap him, probably two at a time, which means over 100,000 volts of electricity.
I don’t think it was done out of malice, it’s just cops find it easier to just tase people immediately (they waited all of 24 seconds before they zapped this poor man) then to take some time to calm people down and then restrain them. It’s just an “instant police tool” in a tough job.
Bottom line is there needs to be some serious oversight and review on the use of the taser and there has to be some serious consequences to what happened in that airport.
And if you hear the full story behind this case, watch the video and saw the man’s shattered mother and are making light of this or are rationalizing it then I will pray for you.
“What bothered me the most about the video is that after they realize the guy is not conscious anymore, they check his pulse, and just look at each other leaving the guy handcuffed on the floor. The video ends abruptly so I don’t know if they started CPR or not. I can’t tell if he still had a pulse at that point.”
They probably did what most cops I’ve seen do; call for the paramedics and give whatever assistance they can while standing up with their hands in their pockets.
This past january, the Atlanta police broke into a 92 year old womans house shot her cuffed her and let her bleed to death while they planted drugs. B UT, because the police were white and the woman black and this is Atlanta (one of the biggest black kleptocracies outside of Lagos) they were prosecuted and actually got some jail time (7 years for something that would have netted a non-cop death row)
” I dunno DD. One of the security/police hanging around outside the door just before they tasered him looked like he was a wild-west gunslinger looking for an excuse.”
I admit I was trying to find a reason the police didn’t just kill the guy. The common mantra in all of them is that they were just following procedures. Thats supposed to absolve them of any responsibility.
“If I’d been locked up for 18 hrs without sleep and no interpreter, I might be kinda ready for a fight too.”
On a recent US Airways flight I was close. At boarding time announced the flight was canceled. They just instructed all 250 people to go to the service desk where two poor ladies had to help. They musta expected trouble as they already had a armed cop standing behind the ladies. Pretty sad that the airline includes armed goons in their customer service plan.
We give up all rights upon entering the Airports. They can do pretty much anything they want.
Ah, for the good old days when cops just walloped you with nightsticks and fists. /s
What’s the story behind the story? Why was he detained for 18 hours? It takes 18 hours to figure out what’s going on with the guy?
Maybe try an interpreter before the taser?
Not yet. The first reports say they found no drugs or alcohol in his system.
VANCOUVER–Outrage and claims that Canada has shamed itself are among reactions to the final screams of a newly arrived Polish immigrant after he was zapped with Tasers by RCMP officers at Vancouver International Airport.
Videotape, released Wednesday, of the confrontation and Robert Dziekanski’s dying moments has now been seen by millions of people around the world, thanks to heavy rotation on the YouTube website and Canadian and international TV networks.
VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED: Watch the video of Robert Dziekanski being Tasered by police.
“When I heard that scream, I screamed. I could not help it,” a weeping Maria Karulis, a member of the Polish Canadian Women’s Federation, said yesterday. “My friends and family in Poland, they tell me that they will never forget that scream. I know I will never forget seeing him fall to the ground and dying.”
Karulis said the image of RCMP officers using 50,000-volt Tasers on the agitated and erratic, but unarmed, Pole, and his obvious agony as he crashes to the floor before falling deathly silent, is jolting viewers around the globe.
“This is the greatest shame Canada could put on herself to the whole world,” she said.
Dziekanski, 40, of Pieszyce, Poland, arrived at the airport last month to start a new life with his mother, Zofia Cisowski.
The non-English speaker had been told to wait for her and he did, for hours, not realizing she couldn’t get into the secure baggage area. Not seeing him emerge from that area, Cisowski had gone home to Kamloops believing her son had missed his first-ever flight.
Dziekanski, sweaty and breathing heavily, began acting erratically, at one point throwing a small table against a window. The videotape shows four RCMP officers arriving just after 1:30 a.m. Oct. 14 to confront him.
He has his hands up and cries out: “Policja, Policja, Policja!”
One of the four officers is heard saying in the video the word “Taser.” Another officer says “yes.”
Dziekanski is shocked at least twice by police. His screams of distress muffle what sounds like a third shot.
“The public outcry and sentiment has been unlike anything I’ve seen before,” said Nelson Kalil, a spokesperson for the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP in Ottawa, which has launched an investigation. “It’s one take, one lens, and something the RCMP is trying to make clear (is) that it should be taken with a grain of salt.”
A number of other probes have been launched, including a coroner’s inquest and reviews by the RCMP and airport officials.
“I was disturbed, I was shocked. It was a very sad thing to watch,” Piotr Ogrodziñski, Poland’s ambassador to Canada, said of the video.
“It appears that police action was not suited to this situation in which an agitated, desperate person was searching for assistance. It’s heartbreaking.” He has sent a diplomatic note to Canadian foreign affairs about the incident.
Yesterday, RCMP Cpl. Dale Carr cautioned that the video shows just one view of the altercation.
B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal added: “I think we should wait until all the evidence is in” before altering police use of Tasers.
In Ottawa, the NDP called for a moratorium on Taser use, saying there are no clear national standards governing them.
Liberal MP Bonnie Brown, meanwhile, said it appears medical intervention was warranted. “Canadians want answers now before more lives are lost. Is it standard operating procedure for the RCMP to use Tasers when there is no obvious physical threat?” asked the Oakville MP.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said he’s asked for his own examination of the weapons.
“Before the Liberal call on this, I had asked for a review related to the use of Tasers,” Day told the Commons.
A spokesperson for Day later downplayed that comment, saying he was referring to the RCMP and coroner’s probe already underway.
I was about to agree with you, but the moments leading right up to the tazing, he was actually being cooperative. They get him to back up against a wall (glass), he has his hands out at his side, and then they tased him. Bad call in my opinion. HAving said that, we WAS being weird and all. Had they tased him when he had the little desk, typewriter, or chair in his hands, that would be one thing, but by the time they tased him, he was pretty calm.
As the brother of a cop, let me say this was way over the line. If these four large Mounties can’t subdue one average sized man, then they need to call Devry and get a new career. A tazer should be used only as a next to last resort.
“Had they tased him when he had the little desk, typewriter, or chair in his hands, that would be one thing, but by the time they tased him, he was pretty calm.”
Good point, other posters have made similar comments and I agree. The cops attitude from the beginning was they were going to taze him. Its pretty sad when airports handling international flights cannot help someone who came in on one of those flights.
You need to see the tape.
Thanks for injecting common sense into this thread. A lot can lead up to any confrontation, but sometimes cops, RCMP officers included, will seek out confrontation just to add some excitement to their day, but actually make matters worse.
They didn’t have to do that but on the other hand his behavior definitely wasn’t normal.
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