The Dziekanski scandal continues..
For those who are unfamiliar with Canadian news, or who live with your heads buried in the sand, Robert Dziekanski was a Polish man immigrating to Canada to be with his mother. He’d apparently never flown before, and was at least somewhat frightened by the prospect of human flight – at least of the personal kind. I could drone on about the incident, but to get down to brass tacks, it can be summed up as: man is afraid of flight and stressed out, doesn’t speak English, lost in airport for a long period of time, nobody tries to help him find a translator, he gets agitated and starts throwing things around (as may be the Polish custom – I have no idea about the culture of ex Soviet bloc rubbish countries), security calls the RCMP, the RCMP (4 pretty buff men) come in and taser him, causing five times, including while he is on the ground, kneel on his head, and stand around while he dies. This, by the way, was video recorded, and the video is available on the wikipedia page (I believe – use Google).
OK – so we’ve established that this man was an ignoramus from the hinterlands, but did he deserve to die? Probably not. First off, while not necessarily related, I should point out that one of the officers has since been charged in connection with a fatal hit n’ run incident. Additionally, from watching the video, it’s incredibly obvious that the RCMP officers involved used excessive force.
The RCMP as an organisation, for its part, has been handling the situation far from well, and in my opinion, deserves many a harsh word. They have repeatedly made outrageous claims regarding the incident, such as the suggestion that Dziekanski was showing an “aggressive stance” by raising his hands (hands up – again, watch the video), and now, they give us this:
Psychologist defends claim Mounties panicked in airport Taser incident
Seriously? God keep our land glorious and free indeed.
