Airport authorities as disfunctional as RCMP during taser tragedy

By GERRY WARNER
Cranbrook Daily Townsman
Nov. 15, 2007
It's only 30 seconds of video but it's destined to become the most famous 30 seconds of video in Canadian history because it tells a story of unbelievable sadness and tragedy.
Would-be Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski is probably the most unlucky person whoever tried to immigrate to Canada. Landing alone at a large international airport in a strange country can be an intimidating experience for anyone. In Dziekanski's case, it was even worse because it was the first time he had ever flown, he didn't speak English and the one thing he'd been told by his mother in Kamloops was to stay in the baggage area until she met him there.
Being the dutiful son, that's exactly what Dziekanski did and in the end, after a chain of events tragic and bizarre beyond words, Dziekanski laid convulsing at the feet of four RCMP officers, who he had every reason to believe were there to help him while his mother rode a Greyhound bus back to Kamloops not knowing her beloved son was dead after being tasered by the RCMP only 25 seconds after they arrived on the scene.
It doesn't get more tragic than that.
After watching the infamous video, Cameron Ward, a Vancouver lawyer, describes Dziekanski's taser death as "a criminal assault by four armed RCMP officers against an unarmed man." Ron Foyle, a retired Vancouver City Police superintendent, says he doesn't understand why it even became a police incident. Walter Kosteckyj, the lawyer for Dziekanski's distraught mother Zofia, said the victim had quit smoking the day before and if someone had just offered him a cigarette in the 10 hours the victim spent pacing around the baggage area the whole deadly incident might have been avoided. In other words, a simple act of kindness may have saved a man's life and prevented a mother's heart from breaking.
But sad to say as we contemplate the looming Christmas season, when love and kindness are supposed to be the order of the day, kindness seems to be in short supply. Especially at the Vancouver International Airport.
There are so many disturbing aspects to this appalling story it's difficult determining where to begin. But for what it's worth, here are a few thoughts of mine. Feel free to add your own.
First of all, what's with the security system at the Vancouver International Airport? How could an obviously confused and distraught man be allowed to roam around the baggage area for 10 hours and no one come to his aid or try to determine what the problem was? What if Dziekanski was dangerous, which he manifestly wasn't, shouldn't the airport security taken some kind of action? Would a terrorist or a suicide bomber be allowed to walk around the airport baggage area like that? And then there's the situation with Dziekanski's mother, Zofia. She arrived at the airport hours before he was due to land and talked to every uniform in the place yet no one gave her any information about her son even though he had already landed and was in the secure baggage area, mere metres away from her. Finally an airport staffer tells her that her son is not in the building and Zofia reluctantly leaves for home only to arrive to a message from the airport that the situation had been sorted out but nothing said about her son's death.
Can you believe this poor woman jumps back on a bus joyful that she would soon be united with her son only to arrive at the airport and be told that her son was dead. Yet the airport authorities didn't even have the common decency to tell her how her son had died. Ward, the lawyer mentioned near the beginning of this piece, said the whole incident made him ashamed to be a Canadian. I share his shame, and as far as I'm concerned so should the other 33 million or so of us.
Finally there's the behaviour of the RCMP. No agendas here. I've never had an unpleasant incident with the RCMP in my life and that speaks well of the Force. But on this one, I'm sorry. After watching that video numerous times, I simply can't fathom the callousness, the arrogance and the disregard those four officers showed for human life that night. For God's sake, the video shows a woman witness to the whole affair attempting to talk to Dziekanski and trying to calm him down. He even smashed a chair on the floor right in front of her and she didn't flinch. Then four burly RCMP officers stride in. One of them jumps the rail. Another asks "may I taser him?" Dziekanski looks at them and makes no threatening gestures whatsoever and says something in Polish. He then turns away with his back towards the officers but makes no attempt to run away. A second or two goes by and he turns back towards the officers again and his hands go up in a shrug-like gesture with a stapler in one hand. He does not attempt to throw or brandish the stapler in any way. The police, now wordless, allow a few more seconds to go by then they taser him at least twice and he collapses writhing at their feet. They pile onto him, one with his knee on Dziekanski's neck. A few moments later he's dead.
Fifty-thousand volts of electricity did its job. I wish I could say the same for the police?
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