Busted

There was an incident at the Vancouver airport one month ago. Four big white guys jumped a new immigrant to Canada, killed him, and then claimed it was self-defense. If not for a bystander who videotaped the whole thing, they would have gotten away with it. Oh, did I mention that the four guys were policemen?

I rarely blog about the news but this is such a disturbing event that I have to say something. What happened is this: Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski got off a 15-hour flight from Frankfurt and was expecting to meet his mother in the luggage claim area. She told him she would meet him there, but didn’t know that only passengers are allowed in that area. He waited there for several hours, while his mother waited a hundred yards away in the public arrivals area. He spoke no English and so didn’t understand what he was supposed to do, and his mother, despite repeated appeals, couldn’t get anyone to go tell him she was waiting for him outside.

Eventually he made his way through customs and then waited a few more hours in another secure area that his mother couldn’t access. Meanwhile, his mother was told that he had never arrived in Vancouver and that she should go home, which she did. After waiting some 10 1/2 hours without any food or water, Dziekanski was distraught, frightened, and agitated, attracting the attention of security. The video shows him sweating and breathing heavily. In his frustration he picked up part of a computer and threw it down, and also threw a small folding side-table at a glass wall (which didn’t break). One woman traveller tried to talk to him, but the language barrier defeated her.

Finally the RCMP arrived. Four big guys with bullet-proof vests jumped over a barrier and swaggered into the glass-walled secure area, where Dziekanski was all alone. One of them was heard asking if they can use the taser, and told “yes.” Bystanders, perhaps airport security, told the RCMP officers that the man in question spoke no English, but that didn’t slow them down at all. They approached Dziekanski and instructed him to move to a more open area, which he did and then stood still, surrounded by the officers. Then, less than 30 seconds after they had arrived, they tasered him and he started screaming and convulsing, and fell to the ground. They tasered him at least once more, and then jumped on him. One officer put his knee on Dziekanski’s neck, while the others helped to hold him down. Dziekanski screamed and struggled for less than a minute and then went limp. An officer is seen checking for a pulse, and a bystander says he heard the office declare a “code red.” CPR was not performed, and by the time paramedics got there, 12 minutes later, it was far too late.

This is what we know because of a video taken by Paul Pritchard, and because of his brave actions afterwards. He initially handed his video over to police on the understanding that they would return it in 48 hours. Instead, they refused to return the video, and Pritchard eventually had to file a lawsuit to get it back. With Dziekanski’s mother’s permission he released the video to the media yesterday, and the country is now in shock.

As I wrote at the top of this post, the police initially claimed that Mr. Dziekanski was posing an immediate threat to themselves and the public. There were hints that drugs or mental illness may have been involved. We now know that none of that is true. Although the exact cause of his death has not been released, the coroner has stated that there was no alcohol or drugs in his system. Thanks to the video we can all see that Dziekanski was not acting in a threatening manner towards the police, and there were no members of the public near him to be threatened either. Frankly, it was all lies. He was a tired, hungry, distressed, panicky traveller who couldn’t speak the language, and he was killed for it.

There is a lot of discussion about tasers today, but to my mind that is not the issue. The taser didn’t kill him—it looks more like he was axphyxiated. The real issue is police brutality, and their lack of accountability to the public. If it were not for this video, we would have had to accept the story that the officers were being threatened by a crazy hopped-up foreigner and that his death was an unfortunate accident. A perfunctory internal investigation would have confirmed it, and that would have been the end of it.

How many times have we been through this? In August alone, four people died while in police custody in B.C. This week in Victoria there is an inquest into the shooting death of a car thief last February. Always we hear the same story about threatening behaviour and drug use. Are we supposed to believe it now? How can we?

I think it’s pretty obvious what we need, beyond the dismissal of the officers involved. The police need to be trained to use minimum force, even when they are being personally threatened. They need to be taught that their lives are no more valuable than anyone else’s. They also need to be surveiled by video as much as possible. But most importantly they need effective civilian oversight; they must never be allowed to investigate themselves again. It is a serious thing when the police can kill civilians and then exonerate themselves. No one should be above the law, least of all those charged with upholding it.

UPDATE: Polish translators have identified Dziekanski’s last words. When he saw the police arrive, he called out “Polizia! Polizia!” as though appealing to them for help. But when one of them pulls out a taser and points it at him, he cries, “Are you out of your mind?!” After that, only screams.

For a full video report on the incident, see here. Below is a poetic response to that report from one viewer:

A Poem: Another Taser Death: Fatal Intervention at Vancouver Airport, 7 Oct 07
(pat newson, comox, b.c. 15nov07)

First, a 15-hour flight
from a foreign land
his first ever trip
& his last on this plane

Then, 10 hours of waiting
a thousand people milling,
but none to talk or listen
in his mother tongue

Except his mother, but
she was beyond the walls
Her son, her son, her one
& only – oh to hold him

After hours & still not finding
him, his mother, in tears,
returns to Kamloops
to wait & wonder & wait

His weariness, his rage
no one to hear or care
He slams things, breaks
a computer – now!

The police, finally, salvation
the relief of giving over
to authority, to sort the mess
for want of a translator

But, ah, in time of terror
of terrorists, the armed fist
before the heart or head,
for want of a translator

A matter of seconds
& Robert Dziekanski is dead;
one more taser death
one more mark on our walls.

Robert Dziekanski, rest in peace.