Police kill Polish man @ Vancouver Airport

[R*R]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It was just lazy policing. Rather than take the time to subdue him, the police thought they could zap him and get out of there quickly. He was a big guy and the police didn't want a physical confrontation. I can't say I blame them. Death by taser is very rare. If the man didn't die, this would have been a non-issue.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well it's not an non-issue. Their improper procedure is completely unforgivable and their blatant use of uneccessary force should result in
severe punishment.

[/ QUOTE ]

But it wasn't improper procedure. The Polish man did not follow the officer's instructions (he didn't place his hands on the counter) and exhibited assault like behaviour by throwing computer equipment around earlier. This is grounds for non-lethal use of force. It is up to the officer's discretion on what to use. I don't think the RCMP were out to get anyone here.

[/ QUOTE ]

First, it was improper prodedure. The police have many physical procedures available to subdue an individual prior to using a taser. Tasers are meant to be last resort porcedures. The only procedure above tasers is the use of a firearm.
This was nowhere near a firearm situation.
And yes we hopefully can assume that the police were not out "to get somebody" (let alone kill somebody) but for whatever reason they made a huge mistake and they must be held accountable.
Canadians are going to accept nothing less!

[Peter666]

"yes, it was improper procedure. tasers are supposed to be almost the last resort, just before firearms. they are meant to be used in situations where firearms would be used if there were no tasers."

I think this is misleading. There are no hard rules designating Tasers as a second last option for Canadian officers. It is an immobilizing tool that uses pain compliance, just like batons, pepper spray, or physical techniques. It is unfair to think that officers should put their bodies in harms way in order to subdue an individual if a reasonable alternative exists, especially since the other techniques can escalate a situation.

The suspect exhibited violent behaviour by throwing equipment around and resisted arrest by not following the officers' orders. Legally, they are covered for using the Taser. What they did afterward though is rightfully subject to criticism.

[kerowo]

What was the actual cause of death? Has it been announced yet?

[rothko]

[ QUOTE ]
"yes, it was improper procedure. tasers are supposed to be almost the last resort, just before firearms. they are meant to be used in situations where firearms would be used if there were no tasers."

I think this is misleading. There are no hard rules designating Tasers as a second last option for Canadian officers. It is an immobilizing tool that uses pain compliance, just like batons, pepper spray, or physical techniques. It is unfair to think that officers should put their bodies in harms way in order to subdue an individual if a reasonable alternative exists, especially since the other techniques can escalate a situation.

The suspect exhibited violent behaviour by throwing equipment around and resisted arrest by not following the officers' orders. Legally, they are covered for using the Taser. What they did afterward though is rightfully subject to criticism.

[/ QUOTE ]

good lord, yes it is the case that tasers are supposed to be used at the upper end of the conflict hierarchy.

it's also not about the legality of using the taser. wtf, how silly to say that.

/trying with you

[R*R]

Casue of death has not conclusively been determined yet. Several circumstances led up to the tasering by the police. They made some serious
procedural mistakes but Vancouver Airport deserves some blame as well for not assisting the victim for houes on end. This article soums things up quite well. I think it is suggested reading. It is a tragic story indeed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/16/world/...nyt&emc=rss

[R*R]

Vancouver Airport is a large international Airport and the following exhibits how their actions were also inexcusable:


Mr. Dziekanski died not far from dramatic Coast Salish totemic "welcome figures" that had greeted him at the entrance to the Arrivals Hall several hours earlier.

Mr. Kosteckyj described how a journey to a new life devolved into a nightmarish scenario, in which Mr. Dziekanski was left wandering helpless and alone in a busy airport while his mother, Zofia Cisowski, was searching for him nearby.

The waiting mother and increasingly frantic son were separated by glass walls and what appears to be impenetrable airport bureaucracy that somehow failed to help them connect.

"Unbelievably, these people were probably no more than 150 to 200 feet apart for at least five hours, and she was unable to get any message to him. And no one on the other side [of the glass walls] thought to interview him or come outside or vice versa," Mr. Kosteckyj said.

He said he could not explain why no one was able to come to the assistance of Mr. Dziekanski in an airport that handles 17 million visitors a year.

"For all the high-tech stuff they have at the airport, and all the security they have, somehow a guy can sit or be in that baggage area, that immigration area, for a period of nine hours … without anyone really taking much notice of him — as unbelievable as that sounds," Mr. Kosteckyj said.

He said Mr. Dziekanski's journey to Canada began in Poland about 3 a.m., when he left his home town of Pieszyce to get to an airport for his first airplane flight. The 40-year-old construction worker, who had never left Poland before, was immigrating to Canada to join his mother, 61, who lives in Kamloops, about a five-hour drive from Vancouver.

They had arranged to meet at the baggage carousel in the international terminal at Vancouver Airport. What neither of them seemed to know, however, was that the baggage area is inside a secure area just past Canada Customs and Immigration. There is no line of sight into the Arrivals Hall from the public waiting area, except for a short distance through sliding glass doors.

Mr. Dziekanski arrived at about 3 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 14.

"He made his way to primary customs in the ordinary fashion … he went through there in the normal time frame … he then proceeded through and was directed to secondary customs, which is normal for someone who doesn't speak English and is immigrating to the country," Mr. Kosteckyj said. His papers were in order and he proceeded without difficulty.

But what happened after that was far from normal. For nearly 10 hours, Mr. Dziekanski stayed in the Arrivals Hall, growing increasingly frustrated and eventually becoming frantic.

Outside, in the public area, his mother spent nearly six hours pacing the corridors and, in broken English, asking airport officials for help in locating her son.

Mr. Kosteckyj said she visited one booth in international arrivals "at least three to four times and conveyed to them that she was concerned about her son being in the area and she wanted to get a message to him and how could she do that? They wrote her name down and said that they would make inquiries."

At about 10 p.m., she was told he wasn't there. She made the long drive home, only to find a phone message waiting, saying her son had been found.

"She called back to immigration when she got in, which would have been around 2 a.m., and spoke to someone there and was advised that her son was somewhere in the area and was fine. And she advised, you know, 'Please take care of him because he can't speak English and I'll get there as soon as I can.' And of course he had died, been killed really, some time on or about 1 or 1:30," Mr. Kosteckyj

[rothko]

R*R,

yeah, the whole thing is so sick. it troubles me how callous people can be both in creating the situation and in reflecting upon it.

[R*R]

Yes all we can hope for is that ultimately some positive changes by both the police and the airport result. It should be said that some civilians tried to help him but by that time he was inconsolable. I really like where you stand on this and optimistically I think alot of people feel the same way.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
It is unfair to think that officers should put their bodies in harms way in order to subdue an individual if a reasonable alternative exists, especially since the other techniques can escalate a situation.


[/ QUOTE ]

Extremely strongly disagree. It is the most essential and characteristic part of their job that they do exactly that. You cannot remove judgment from policing without totalitarianism. When police become robotic, they become no better than thugs. Taking the easy way out to avoid potential bodily harm is the exact opposite of what police are hired for. Anyone, or it should probably be stated, any ass, can be hired simply to apply maximum force to every situation in order to keep his own arse maximally safe. But we are not hiring room cleaners and search and destroy technicians when we hire police. Entirely the opposite.

We are paying police -- and many of them get paid very well -- precisely to put themselves in harm's way so we don't have to, and to eliminate the threat of violence from daily life for civil society. If it is the police themselves who comprise any part of the threat of violence, they are no better than thugs and have completely failed in their mission. As well, those delimiting the scope of their duties would be responsible for the sick, dangerous turning of the police mission from protecting and serving to being a quasi-military force arrayed against a country's own citizens.

This is not a fascistic state. Not yet, anyway. Police are still here to protect us, not punish us, or arbitrarily decide what level of safety is appropriate to us. Police are merely the tools of an orderly society, not the decadent rulers of it.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes all we can hope for is that ultimately some positive changes by both the police and the airport result. It should be said that some civilians tried to help him but by that time he was inconsolable. I really like where you stand on this and optimistically I think alot of people feel the same way.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am trying to remain optimistic that there is still enough empathy and ordinary decency left in society that sober people can feel this incident was handled extremely badly.