POLAND steps into Canadian murder-by-taser case, Polish prosecutors to get involved

VANCOUVER - Poland's consul general in Vancouver is so shocked by the video of Robert Dziekanski's death, he has now asked his country's Attorney General to look into the case.

"I asked the Polish prosecutors office to contact directly the Canadian Attorney General in order to establish what happened," Maciej Krych told the Vancouver Sun today, after the video was finally made public.

"After seeing the video, I am still in a state of shock," he said. "I am still rather terrified."

Krych said that before he saw the video, Poland had only written a diplomatic note to Canada "informing about our concern."

Now, he says, he has recommended that Poland use its existing relationships within Canada to monitor the case.

"There is an agreement between our two prosecutors offices," said Krych.

"What I have done is to send this information to the Polish prosecutors and ask them whether they want to investigate this case further," he added.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=99f7a932-9efc-4f8d-9732-0157651dd532&k=32890

Video here:

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/index.html#

I doubt it was the Taser that killed him. It was all those men piling on top of him, one with his knee on the poor man's neck. When are police going to learn that you can suffocate someone that way?

"When are police going to learn that you can suffocate someone that way?"

They already know, that's why they do it, hoping that it will stop the suspect from resisting!!!

Don't worry, the officers involved will be exonerated, the prosecutor will just have to go through the motions.

Everything on videotape for the world to see, and the Polish guy will be declared a posthumous "threat".

We are heart-broken for his mother.

33% of our folks would be playing lame Toby Keith songs on how we "kicked another foreigners ass".

Really.

means a lot coming from a Canadian!

Basically, the RCMP has been hit by scandal after scandal (almost like the family-value Republicans getting outed for...you know) for the past year. The head of the police force was fired/resigned earlier this year, while retired officers described a lack of morale. Then there was a web video that had a song about the police chasing aboriginals for theft. And then there's this. The opinion polls indicate that trust in the RCMP has (predictably) slumped, while people are calling for heads to roll.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070524/bush_inquest_070524
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/rcmp/civilian-shooting.html

Only this time, there is video evidence. I can't help wondering how the story would change, if someone had been around with a camera (the young man was shot in the back of the head, and the officer claimed self-defense).

To add to what Teh_Rabble_Rouser said -- to Canadians, the RCMP are not just police officers. I guess, if there were a US equivalent it would be like a combination of the FBI's "Untouchables" of legend, along with "our troops", and the good-guy sheriff in so many western movies -- and maybe the Minutemen of the American Revolution. Canadians don't tend to get enthused about uniforms, but there are some exceptions ... the blue beret of the UN peacekeepers, old pictures of our WWI and WWII-era soldiers with their British-type helmets, and the red serge of the Mounties.

It's such a part of our culture that even those of us who know about the RCMP "dirty tricks" against leftist groups or Quebec separatists, or how they practically delivered Maher Arar to be tortured ... even so, it hurts to admit that there is a problem and that it has existed for a long time. Part of me still wants to believe that "the horsemen" are like Paul Gross's character on "Due South".

People who critique the RCMP will inevitably be slammed by those who cry, "How about the 4 young Mounties who were murdered in Alberta?" (or the most recent RCMP death up in the Arctic). I suppose it's inevitable that there are some similarities with anti-war Americans being attacked as unpatriotic, when one dares to question a cherished national institution.

Or does it go back further? Is it a symptom of the RCMP falling in lock-step with the federal government in Canada (similar to what has happened here in Australia with our Australian Federal Police)?

... for various incidents of incompetence, cover-ups, outright "dirty tricks", etc. -- there was even a Royal Commission held, decades ago, that resulted in the intelligence functions being handed over to a new agency, CSIS.

But I too am troubled by the direction things seem to have taken recently. When the guy in charge is allowed to keep his job, even though there's evidence that he was untruthful about the RCMP's role in the Maher Arar torture incident -- I think it sends a bad message.

This is just getting too easy. They tasered him twice, though he had tried to walk away (see the video). It is very very disturbing- he died quite brutually.

BTW the police seized the digital media from a photographer and tried to cover it up.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b22_1193866884


17 taser deaths in Canada alone in just the last 4 1/2 years.

Here's a Watchdog and activist site aiming to curb law enforcement's use and abuse of tasers. Other cases also being followed here:

http://truthnottasers.blogspot.com/

As a Canadian who's travelled to Europe, I'm ashamed that airport officials didn't do anything for this man or his mother, to prevent this incident from happening in the first place. If Canada is so keen to attract international visitors, it is completely hypocritical to ignore them if they can't speak English/French. All it would have taken is ONE person -- even someone who couldn't speak Polish -- showing a card or poster in various languages, that would have identified which one was required ... and a call-list of interpreters. It didn't have to take so long.

I hope that any attempt, by the authorities or the media, to imply "it's only Poland and not some more important country", will not be tolerated ... not just by Polish-Canadians, but by the country as a whole.

Maybe there's something else to the story. Taser deaths are VERY rare.

:eyes:

so if you know the full story, please let us know. :eyes:

:shrug:

I know what the reports say about taser deaths in the US, taser deaths in Canada and the use of tasers in general and the history of their use. I know that there have been 17 deaths since 2001 in Canada and 284 in the US. I saw the video that everyone else saw of the Polish citizen in Vancouver Airport.

It seems the "full story" on that particular incident is being pieced together, so am not sure what you mean by asking me if I know the full story.

n/t

Weird.

If international visitors are left marooned in the arrivals hall, with no way to get in touch with the people who are meeting them -- something isn't working. The news coverage here in BC reported that both the man and his mother tried to get/leave messages that might have prevented this, but the staff refused to help. As someone who sometimes uses that airport (and friends have noted problems re: desks unstaffed, etc.), I'd like to know what was going on. I agree that we need to know the full story (and the federal opposition party is calling for an inquiry).

That no one would take the time to help him. How hard could it have been to look at the guy's passport, see where he's from, and call an appropriate consulate?

Everyone in the chain who refused should be fired outright. If it was policy, whomever crafted it should be fired outright.

It caught my attention because my mother is Polish, but was worse than even I imagined, such an unnecessary tragedy. The poor man didn't even understand what was happening to him, didn't speak English. My heart broke for his mother who saved for eight years to bring him here...;(

a son who couldn't believe his mom was not there to meet him and the mom was in another building at the airport. Meanwhile he was slaughtered for being a stressed out stranger waiting for his mother and unable to communicate with anyone. That's unbelievably fucked up. You'd think the Tourist Board would have people there to help out.

The Poles are not the ones to be throwing stones. They jail foreigners in
deplorable conditions with only questionable indications of guilt (happened
to a friend of mine from Holland who was visiting), and they send waves of
their most brutal organized crime gangs over here to Germany because they
know that the German justice system is extremely lenient on foreigners who
commit violent crime (but don't dare underpay a cent of your value added tax
bill--that'll get you 18 months of hard time, minimum!--underpay by ten million
at the very least if you want to stay out of jail). In my job, I come across
organized crime gangs from Eastern Europe operating in Western Europe. Some of
them wear suits and ties, too.

The Canadians need to clean their own house, here. From the immediate outcry,
it looks to me that they will, too. The Canadians themselves seem to have
been as shocked by this incident as anyone, which I find very encouraging.
Getting admonishment from Polish officials about official wrongdoing is like
getting criticized by Scooter Libby for lying under oath.

And Poland certainly has a right to make inquiries on her (dead) citizen's behalf.

If you find a group of Polish officials where more than one of them is NOT corrupt,
it'll be a new one on me. The guy who was killed was obviously some poor guy who was
freaked out in an environment that made him nervous. But like I said, this is Canada's
problem to solve. The Poles, if they are true to the form they have shown both in Poland
(where I have to deal with government officials all the time) and here in Germany, are not
the ones to do anything substantive about this.

The is Canada's nightmare, and they are the ones who must address it. They, after all, are the
ones with the taser-happy cops, not Poland.

It seems to me that police are resorting to Tasers too damn quickly. You might not like this but whatever happened to (a) talking to a person and (b) if necessary taking them down with physical (ie unaided) force? Four RCMP officers and they had to Taser this bloke??? No, wrong, completely wrong, they should have just jumped him and wrestled him. You can control what you do in a fight, you can't predict the effects of a couple of Taser hits. I hate that thing.

Did these taser-happy cops even realize that this poor guy didn't speak English and had no idea what was going on?!;(

but aren't there usually translators on-call? I would think that they would be pretty useful at immigration checkpoints...:shrug:

One time when my Dad was at JFK, he ran across some poor guy who was on the phone and only spoke Spanish. The person who he was talking to was supposed to meet him, to pick him up, but he didn't speak Spanish. So my Dad ran around the airport until he found somebody to translate for this guy so he could meet his ride. I realize that this wasn't the same kind of charged situation, and that Polish isn't spoken as commonly as Spanish is, but I would still think that they would employ translators, in case they needed to communicate with people coming into the country who don't speak English...:shrug:

Of course an immigration checkpoint should have instant, one-button phone access to official translators, 24/365.

A lot of posts on DU feature the phrase "no one could have predicted that {insert the most obviously predictable outcome}..." in homage to Bu**sh**co's (ostensible) failure to see the bleeding obvious.

I'm usually up on these things, since we practically have news on 24/7 here, have had Air America on all morning, deconstructing last night's debate. :-)

I am familiar with "we can't comment on an ongoing investigation...":eyes:

As for Condi, I guess that I pretty much tune her out, since most everything that she says makes me want to shake her or yell at the TV. I keep waiting for a similar reaction from somebody on some Senate committee that she's appearing in front of...:rofl:

I happen to agree with Stephen Colbert when he enumerated Bush*'s "anti" appointments, the "torture guy" for AG, the one who ignored the memo as NSA, etc...:eyes:

Thanks! I always learn something new on DU...:hi:

I heard a psychiatric nurse being interviewed about how to handle out-of-control totally distraught patients. She said it only takes a couple of nurses and an orderly to physically subdue them and they try to calm them the whole while. They do not escalate the situation by violent confrontation. I'm upset they didn't do CPR afterwards but waited for the medics.

There is an uproar in Parliament over this and Canadians are furious and ashamed and outraged. There have been around 54 taser deaths in Canada this year. Nobody seems to be defending the RCMP. They have done plenty of outrageous things over the years and deserve to lose their hero image.

Canadians are too angry to let this blow over.

Canada Reviews Tasering Following Video of Stun Gun Death
The Canadian government has ordered a review of stun gun use following the release of video footage showing a fatal police tasering of an unarmed man last month. Forty year-old Robert Dziekanski had flown in from Poland to live with his mother. He became agitated after spending hours waiting for her in a secure area at Vancouver International Airport. She had told him to wait for him by the baggage claim when in fact he would have had to first pass through customs to see her. After ten hours, Dziekanski picked up a small wooden table and began to act unruly. Police tasered him, killing him within minutes. Paul Pritchard is the traveler who caught the incident on tape.

Paul Pritchard: "He basically shrugged his shoulders, put up his hands and kind of admitted defeat, if you will. And he'd been banging things; he looked like he admitted -- he pointed at the computer by his side -- he broke something. OK, do what you need to do, obviously, arrest him or whatever. He just wanted to see his mother. I mean, it's been, like, 10 hours. And, you know, they tasered him. They used the taser at that point."

In addition to the taser review Canadian police say they’re conducting a separate investigation.
***
more: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/16/1419215

I'd be frustrated too, after waiting ten hours! Yikes! Good thing that there was a witness, since somebody obviously has to answer for this. :-(

I couldn't believe it. :cry:

I would like to apologize for our shitty police, our shitty government, and our shitty prime minister to this man's mother, and anybody who knew him.

The RCMP told outright lies about this even after they had the video in their hands, they tried to stop the owner of the video from getting it back and making it public. They failed, thank goodness. Only after the video became public did they admit they lied about the circumstances surrounding this travesty of justice.

I am glad Poland is demanding a role in the investigation because, overall, the government and the RCMP want to keep the investigations "in-house", the RCMP investigating itself which is total BS.

My heart breaks for his family, their loved one was murdered, imo, it is as simple as that and those involved need to suffer the consequences of their actions.