Canadian aggressors tase immigrant to death

[Cort Haus]

Perhaps Tazer International could sell a soft drink product to compete with this:

[Wezil]

CBSA finally speak.

A rather lengthy article but the back half has the best synopsis I've seen yet of what happened in the hours leading up to the tasering.

VANCOUVER - The agency overseeing Canada's border guards says it will make immediate changes to its operation at Vancouver International Airport in the wake of last month's death of an agitated Polish immigrant in a police confrontation.

Alain Jolicoeur, president of the Canada Border Services Agency, said an internal investigation has recommended a review of services provided to international travellers and those waiting to meet them.

The agency is also updating its list of employees who speak languages other than English and French and reviewing interpreter services to make sure interpreters are provided as quickly as possible.

More cameras will be installed to cover areas under the agency's control and it's also looking at increasing security, as well as ensuring people report to secondary customs screening in a timely manner.

"I assure you that the CBSA is committed to implementing these recommendations without delay here at Vancouver International Airport and at other international airports as appropriate," Jolicoeur said in a statement.

Robert Dziekanski died Oct. 14 after being stunned twice by a Taser in a confrontation with the RCMP.


Dziekanski spent 10 hours in the secure part of the international arrivals area after missing a rendezvous with his mother who was waiting in the public area.

"I would like to extend our sincere and deepest sympathies to the family of Mr. Dziekanski," Jolicoeur said.

"Our thoughts are with Mr. Dziekanski's family and friends at this difficult time."

It's the first time the agency - which oversees customs and immigration procedures at border points, air and sea ports - has talked publicly about the incident.

Along with the RCMP and Vancouver's airport authority, the agency has been under tremendous pressure to explain how Dziekanski could have lingered for hours in the arrivals area, working himself up to the point of barricading an exit door, tossing a computer to the ground and flinging a chair at a glass partition.

Police arrived to deal with a report of an agitated unruly man and minutes later Dziekanski was dead.

His final moments were captured on video by another traveller and the recording sparked international outrage when it was broadcast two weeks ago.

In its review, the agency said Dziekanski arrived on a flight from Frankfurt at 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 13 and was processed through primary border inspection at 4:09 p.m.

"Surveillance footage shows Mr. Dziekanski proceeding to the immigration secondary area immediately after being processed at the (primary inspection line)," the report says.

A video review shows only two brief shots of him the entire evening, the report notes.

"Further footage shows that for unknown reasons, Mr. Dziekanski did not enter the immigration area but proceeded to the carousel/baggage area."

The baggage area is as big as two football fields and about 4,000 passengers went through it while Dziekanski was there, the report says.

Dziekanski's mother, who had travelled from her Kamloops, B.C., home to pick up her 40-year-old son, has said she told him to wait in the baggage area, unaware she would not be allowed in there because it was a secure area.

The report says it's not unusual for people to loiter in the baggage area if, for example, they're waiting for delayed luggage, family members who haven't been processed or passengers arriving on later flights.

It appears Dziekanski stayed there until 10:40 p.m. that evening, when he attempted to leave. At that point, a border services officer directed him to the secondary inspection area.

His bags were cleared without incident and he was escorted to immigration's secondary area to have his landing documents processed, the report says.

No translator was available to help Dziekanski, who spoke only Polish, but one border services officer with limited knowledge of the language did assist him with the immigration examination.

The questions are fairly basic, the report says, and officers use various methods, including Internet translation tools, pre-translated question sheets and gestures to get through the process, the report says.

A border services officer vainly paged into the public area at around 11:30 p.m. to see if anyone was there to meet him, the report says.

But his mother, Zofia Cisowski, had left by then.

She has said she spent hours waiting for Dziekanski and returned to Kamloops after a border services officer in the public area told her there was no record of a Polish immigrant having arrived.

The report says Dziekanski was told he was free to leave but stayed in the immigration-processing area for another half an hour before being escorted to the exit.

"Based on reports from the officers who interacted with the traveller that evening, Mr. Dziekanski did not ask any of the (border services officers) for assistance during the time he was waiting in the CBSA area," the report says.

"Mr. Dziekanski was given several glasses of water while he was in the secondary processing area. All officers who interacted with the traveller did not observe, in their opinion, behaviour which would raise any concerns."

The report notes Cisowski's husband, Dziekanski's stepfather, called border services' secondary area at around 7 p.m. to ask about Dziekanski but did not know for sure whether Dziekanski was on the expected flight.

Checks were done, the report says, but no one fitting Dziekanski's description was found.

Dziekanski's mother called border services at about 2:10 a.m., Oct. 14, looking for her son after she arrived back home in Kamloops.

By then, her son was dead or dying after his encounter with police a few minutes earlier.

"Unaware of the status of Mr. Dziekanski, the officer (who answered the phone) advised her that he had seen her son earlier in the evening and that Mr. Dziekanski had left the CBSA area," the report says.

[Kontiki]

So it appears that he wasn't actually detained in any way, but remained in the secured area out of confusion.

[Wezil]

I read it as detained out of confusion in a secure area...

[Wezil]

*bump* so we can all get out our scorecards and see who got it so terribly wrong.

The official report is out and the cops involved are once again facing the possibility of charges.

Canada’s national police force is facing a collapse of public confidence, a loss of trust that deepened with an inquiry’s finding that there was no justification for the death of a Polish immigrant at the hands of four RCMP officers.

Mr. Justice Thomas Braidwood issued his final report Friday on the death of Robert Dziekanski in 2007 at Vancouver International Airport, calling for far-reaching reforms to policing in British Columbia in an effort to restore public faith in the RCMP.

“Mr. Dziekanski’s death appears to have galvanized public antipathy for the Force and its members,” he wrote. “That is regrettable, because the most important weapon in the arsenal of the police is public support. This tragic case is, at its heart, the story of shameful conduct by a few officers.”

That body blow comes just one day after damning findings from the Air India report, which found deep systemic flaws in Canada’s national-security apparatus, including the RCMP.

Mr. Braidwood’s report – whose title Why? was drawn from Mr. Dziekanski’s final words – set off a chain reaction, triggering the appointment of a special prosecutor that could end in criminal charges against the four Mounties who tasered the Polish immigrant, and prompting an unqualified apology from the RCMP.

William Elliott, the RCMP Commissioner, said he recognizes what is at stake for the national police force. “Canadians will not support us if they don’t trust us,” he said, as he issued an unqualified apology to Mr. Dziekanski’s mother for the death of her son.

But Mr. Braidwood said he believes the recommendations in his report for far-reaching changes in the policing structure in British Columbia – and their immediate embrace by the RCMP and the B.C. government – indicate that the Mounties can rebuild their battered reputation.

”Restoring public confidence is the name of the game here and I think this is the way to do it,” he said.

His recommendations include creating a civilian-led Independent Investigation Office to probe cases involving all police, including the RCMP, in British Columbia. He also called for a new look by a special prosecutor at the decision not to charge the four officers involved in the fatal confrontation.

Mike de Jong, B.C.’s attorney general and solicitor general, embraced both of Mr. Braidwood’s main recommendations. By day’s end, prominent Vancouver lawyer Richard Peck was named the special prosecutor.

Mr. de Jong said at a news conference that the review was “not just warranted but essential,” and he hoped it would be concluded as quickly as possible.

Zofia Cisowski, Mr. Dziekanski’s mother who has publicly stated that she wants the four officers involved charged , said she appreciated the apology from Mr. Elliott, but was confused about why the four officers are still members of the force.

“They still have no consequences,” she said, noting that the media asked Mr. Elliott many times why the officers are still employed. “You have no answer. I need an answer, too.”

One of the officers has been suspended because of another criminal matter involving a traffic accident that killed a motorcyclist. The three others are on administrative duties and not involved in front-line policing.

Poland’s embassy in Ottawa issued a statement in which it urged the B.C. Crown to reassess its decision not to lay charges.

Mr. Braidwood, ending his leadership of the two-year inquiry, said in an interview that he was “absolutely delighted” with all of the developments that followed a morning briefing in which he discussed his 460-page report.

“They adopted it all.”

He said he cannot get into the question of whether the four officers should face criminal charges. “I cannot get into that, cannot at all. That’s just outside of my bailiwick,” he told The Globe and Mail.

The reputation of the RCMP “will begin to ascend to [the] height it used to be,” he said, as work continues on enacting the recommendations that came out of his marathon inquiry.

Mr. Braidwood offered a new description on the death of Mr. Dziekanski, based on the views of 14 experts. Lost for at least five hours in the customs hall of the international arrivals area of the airport, an exhausted and confused Mr. Dziekanski began acting erratically, drawing the attention of the police who responded to a 911 call.

“The officers approached the incident as though responding to a bar-room brawl, and failed to shift gears when they realized they were dealing with an obviously distraught traveler,” he concluded.

Mr. Braidwood concluded that while Mr. Dziekanski was zapped five times and struggled while being cuffed, he suffered a surge of adrenaline amplified by the effects of the taser and a struggle with the officers that caused a cardiac arrest.

He found that Mr. Dziekanski was neither compliant, defiant or resistant upon approach by the officers, and that he did not present a threat when he brandished a stapler in frustration.

Mr. Braidwood said RCMP Constable Kwesi Millington, who used his taser on Mr. Dziekanski, was not justified in using the weapon because neither Constable Millington nor his supervising officer, Corporal Benjamin Robinson, “honestly perceived” an imminent attack.

He also said all four officers’ claims that they wrestled Mr. Dziekanski to the ground were “deliberate misrepresentations” to justify their actions. He doubted their claims that there was no discussion among the officers about the incident before being questioned by investigators - a key point of debate at the inquiry - but did not conclude they “colluded to fabricate a story.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/braidwood-report-calls-for-far-reaching-reforms-after-shameful-conduct/article1608582/

[Asher]

I cant remember what I said, did I get it right?

[Wezil]

10 hours in a secure room with no food or water and no one that speaks your language...maybe?

I don't so much blame the cops here. The guy looked out of his mind. Sometimes people just react badly to being tased.

The real problem lies with Customs, and why this guy was locked in the room for so long and why his mother was told the guy wasn't at the airport when she came to pick him up.

I'd say you were 50/50 with bonus marks for the first part.