Daily Kos: Electric Justice?

Electric Justice?

by pale cold

Fri Nov 02, 2007 at 03:35:11 PM PDT

A few weeks ago a man was tasered at the Vancouver airport here in Canada, and passed away as a result.

This story has gotten bigger and hasn't gone away as i am sure the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would like it to. So many different accounts and conflicts, mostly with the RCMP version.

The footage taken on a cell phone by a Paul Pritchard, is (maybe) going to be released by the RCMP in the next couple of days. He is going through with his court appearance to ensure that they follow through with their promise.

I don't want to see the film, personally. Although I am sure the press is almost gnawing through their straps in anticipation.

pale cold's diary :: ::

Pritchard had turned over his video footage to police on the understanding it would be returned to him within 48 hours.
But police have since changed their minds, saying the release of Pritchard's footage may taint other witness testimony.
Investigators told Pritchard it could be a year to two years before he gets the footage back.

Now Pritchard is suing the Mounties to get the video back in a bid to show the public what actually happened and put to rest the questions surrounding Dziekanski's death.

Here are the undisputed facts:

The man arrived at YVR, he was kept in the immigration section for 10 hours. An interpreter was not supplied. He would have had papers as he was coming into Canada from Poland as a landed immigrant.

Mr. Dziekanski was sponsored by his mother to come to Canada, Mr. Kosteckyj said, and passed the necessary health checks before being issued the required documentation to come.
"He came as a landed immigrant, so he went through full medical screens and checks, so he didn't just walk in the door."

His mother, Zofia Cisowski arrived to pick her son up from Airport. He never showed up in the International Arrivals area. For several hours she sought help, and was informed her son was not at the airport. The airport itself is not set up so that staff and security can communicate. So she had no other option than to believe that he hadn't made the plane, and she went home.

"(The mother and son) were within 150 to 200 feet of each other for not less than five hours. During that course of time, his mother sought help from Canadian Immigration. But there was apparently no way for her to effectively get a message to him."

Mr. Dziekanski apparently spent the hours sitting on a bench, until he became frustrated and acted out at about 1:30 a.m. local time.

After so many hours and no way to communicate, the man became agitated and was said to be yelling and throwing things, and the police were called.

The man was tasered, and died approx 5-8? minutes later.

The witness accounts have been confusing, and the conflicting RCMP statements have been kind of puzzling, to me anyway.

"I saw two of them [police officers], they tasered him at the same time," Sima Ashrafina of North Vancouver said. "Now [the police spokesman] is trying to justify that the way we train our officers, they're aiming one at a time. That is not true. That's not what happened."

The woman, who was at the airport to pick up her husband, captured some of the incident on her cellphone camera. "It was too harsh, that's my personal opinion," she said.

She said five police officers arrived. The RCMP have said three showed up. "RCMP came like 1:35 a.m. and he died 1:39 a.m.," she said.

Tox screens have shown the man was not drunk, or under the influence of drugs.

I recall reading an earlier report where the RCMP spokesperson stated that witnesses become confused, and don't understand what they see. But they (the RCMP) have the ability to see beyond the witness statements. I am guessing from the officers reports, the same ones who tasered the man. blink (I cannot find that quote now. Pass me a link if it's still out there somewhere)

The RCMP said they didn't want to "taint" witness'accounts with a video being made public.

Other officers have said that all the witnessinterveiws are done.

Amid mounting calls from the public and observers for the release of the apparently high-quality footage, Cpl. Carr had also said police feared its release and broadcast by the media would affect the memories of witnesses that investigators hoped to interview.
But he said yesterday that police have interviewed all relevant witnesses at this point and recorded their accounts of the events before Mr. Dziekanski's death.
"That is certainly an issue we deal with in every
investigation. People recalls things differently eight months, a year later. That's why we record things as very quickly as we can," he said.

The man who took the actual video that has been in the news has something to say that doesn't sound good either.

Mr. Pritchard said yesterday from Victoria that he heard
one of three Mounties approaching Mr. Dziekanski, 40, and passing by him, he asked a colleague whether he should use the taser even before they reached the scene.
"I thought it was, 'Can I use the taser?' It could have been,'Should I use the taser?' "

He also had this to say in another report:

Pritchard said that in the 25 minutes prior to security and RCMP officers arriving on scene, at least five people - including women - went up to Dziekanski to offer help.

Although he was clearly distressed and behaving strangely "none of us felt threatened at any time. We weren't scared, women were going right up to him," said Pritchard.

Now, to be sure, this is all disturbing. Taken on it's own it's tragic. taken with other taser incidents in the news? It's extremely disturbing.

Family wants answers in Tasering of elderly man'

Gerry Morgan, a 79-year-old who suffered from Parkinson's disease, broke his hip after Halton emergency task force officers used the Taser inside his home.
He had also been shot in the arm with a rubber-like projectile from an anti-riot weapon.
Officers were called by Morgan's wife after she saw him cutting fruit in their kitchen in the middle of the night. She thought he was confused and called for assistance.
When police arrived, they used the Taser, triggering the serious fall. Morgan was in a hospital for months.

There's some more incidents at this blog:Confrontation.

Toronto man struck in eye by police Taser
Monday, October 29, 2007
CBC News

A man is in hospital and may lose one of his eyes after being hit by a police Taser over the weekend in Toronto.

The province’s Special Investigations Unit has been called in to review the incident.

SIU spokesman Frank Phillips said Toronto officers were called to the scene of a domestic dispute in the St. Clair and Dufferin area on Saturday morning.

- April 19, 2003: Terry Hanna, 51, Burnaby RCMP.

- July 22, 2003: Clayton Willey, 33, Prince George RCMP.

- May 1, 2004: Roman Andreichikov, 25, Vancouver police.

- June 23, 2004: Robert Bagnell, 44, Vancouver police.

- June 30, 2005: Gurmeet Sandhu, 41, Surrey RCMP.

- Oct. 14, 2007: Man in his 40s, Richmond RCMP.

Mr. Dziekanski arrived in Canada for his new life. He was held for 10 hours with no means to communicate, the only person he knew in Canada simply wasn't able to get to him. He became agitated, and now he is dead.