Life in Canada

Canada stun gun death 'not justified'

Canadian police officers were not justified in using a taser gun on a Polish immigrant who later died, an inquiry has found.

Robert Dziekanski, who did not speak English, died after being stunned five times with a Taser gun at Vancouver airport in 2007.

The district attorney general has said that a special prosecutor would look into possible criminal charges against the four officers involved.

The case sparked outrage across Canada.

Mr Dziekanski, 40, was a first-time traveller who had been emigrating to Canada, where his mother lived.

He disappeared for 10 hours at Vancouver airport, and grew distressed when he was told by an official that his mother was not there. Airport workers called police after he threw a computer and a chair.

'Shameful'
Thomas Braidwood, the head of the inquiry commission, said that police had not been justified in using the Taser, and that Mr Dziekanski had not posed a threat to the officers, as had been claimed.

He said that the five jolts and the ensuing struggle with police had "contributed substantially to Mr Dziekanski's death".

The inquiry was set up after a video, filmed by a bystander, was released to the media.

Mr Braidwood said the video "shocked and repulsed people around the world".

Before his death, Mr Dziekanski reportedly asked the policemen: "Have you lost your minds?"

The commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, William Elliott, apologised to Mr Dziekanski's mother, Zofia Cisowski.

"I would like to express sincere regrets and apologise unconditionally for the role of the RCMP in this tragic death.

"Our policies and training were inadequate. The actions of our officers were inappropriate," he said at a news conference.

One of the officers involved is already suspended due to an investigation into a separate incident, while the other three remain in their positions but are not involved in "front-line policing", he said.

The Canadian Press

Date: Friday Mar. 5, 2010 6:49 AM ET

OTTAWA — The federal government is confirming plans to create a new watchdog over the RCMP.

The budget provides $8 million over two years to establish the long-promised oversight body. Though details were unclear, the new organization will replace the existing Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP.

The current mandate of the commission does not allow it to properly probe the Mounties' security activities.

In addition, the law does not give the complaints commission full access to information in RCMP files and the body lacks power to review or audit the force's programs and policies.

As a result, former complaints commission chairman Paul Kennedy said last year he was powerless to tell whether the Mounties had made the changes needed to prevent another Maher Arar affair.

A federal inquiry led by Justice Dennis O'Connor examined the role Canadian officials played in opening the door to Arar's torture in a grave-like Syrian cell after he was falsely accused of ties to terrorism.

Among the changes O'Connor called for more than three years ago was an overhaul of the RCMP complaints commission that would give it new powers to keep an eye on the Mounties' intelligence activities.


Is this just another exercise in the art of veneering..?