Polish immigrant tasered at Vancouver airport by 4 Mounties;
Couldn't Speak English
CBS, Nov 15, 2007

A video of a Polish immigrant being jolted with a police Taser at the Vancouver airporT shows the man screaming and writhing in pain on the floor shortly before he dies. The video, taken by another traveler on Oct. 14, shows four Royal Canadian Mounted Police converging on Robert Dziekanski, who could not speak English and who had languished in the airport arrivals area for 10 hours after his flight arrived last month.

"He's holding a folding table at the door to the arrivals area of Vancouver airport. He's exhausted, confused, and breathing heavily," reports Terry Milewski of the CBC.

After arriving from Poland on his first-ever plane ride, Dziekanski had been waiting 10 hours for his mother, who told him to wait in the baggage area. But she couldn't go in there, couldn't get a message to him and finally went home after being told he never arrived.

On the video, a bystander tried to calm Dziekanski down, but he didn't understand. Then, he picked up a computer and threw it, and then a wooden piece of furniture.

The Polish man appears calm when the police arrive.

The video shows him backing up, raising his hands and turning away before the police stun him with the 50,000-volt Taser, sending him to the floor screaming before he's stunned again and the Mounties pin down his head and limbs to handcuff him. "Probably the most disturbing part is one of the officers using his leg and his knee to pin his head and his neck against the ground," said Paul Pritchard, who made the video. Dziekanski then became quiet and died soon after.

"I don't know why it ever became a police incident," said retired Vancouver police Supt. Ron Foyle. "It didn't seem that he made any threatening gestures towards them." "Not a lot goes on in an airport. So, if you're there and there's an incident, sometimes they might overreact. It looks like that's what happened in Vancouver," aviation expert Michael Boyd said on CBS News' The Early Show Thursday.

The RCMP urged the public not to rush to judgment. "It is only one piece of evidence and it's one person's view, the viewfinder of one individual," said RCMP Cpl. Dale Carr, adding that something made the Mounties take the action they did.

The lawyer for Diekanski's mother, Walter Kosteckyj, said the release of the video has driven the woman into seclusion. He said Zofia Cisowski of Kamloops saw part of the video and feels her son was frightened, in distress and looking for help which he never got.

"They have to do something with this killing with that Taser weapon. They should do something because that is killer, people killer," Cisowski told the CBC before going into seclusion.

"You've got to question whether one person standing there with three or four officers is a threat," Boyd told Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm. "It doesn't look good for the Canadian police right now."

Canadian stun gun death on video (cops kill immigrant at airport). BBC, Nov 15, 2007

Polish immigrant tasered by 4 Mounties (couldn't speak English). CBS, Nov 15, 2007

A Victoria man man who filmed Robert Dziekanski's dying moments at Vancouver International Airport last month says the Polish immigrant was surrendering himself to police when officers shocked him with a Taser. On Tuesday, Paul Pritchard said police piled on to the 40-year-old after he fell to the ground, and one officer dug his knee into the back of Dziekanski's neck until he went limp...."It's really brutal."....Pritchard, 25, was at the airport because he was returning from China.

At the request of police, he gave them the video on the understanding they would return it immediately. When they then refused to give it back, he launched court action. Police returned it last week. Pritchard said Tuesday he has made arrangements to have the footage released to the public in Vancouver this afternoon. He said he will not hold a news conference, and will remain in Victoria. He said the footage will consist of three different videos -- one that covers Dziekanski's actions before the police arrive, one that starts as the police walk in and covers the Tasering and a third that shows what happened after it was clear Dziekanski was in serious distress.

Dziekanski had been in the airport for many hours before he was Tasered on Oct. 14. He spoke no English, and apparently was unable to connect with his mother, who was waiting for him in another area of the airport. Initial reports were that he had become frustrated and began yelling and throwing things before security and police were called....Pritchard says he believes the video will show "how bad it was handled." He said the footage will show that, contrary to his initial belief, police were very calm before they shocked Dziekanski. "They are all standing around him and they all look like they should be having a coffee and a cigarette," he said, adding Dziekanski appears equally calm. "He's giving up. He's shrugging his shoulders and walking away," Pritchard said. "He is making no dangerous moves or threatening mannerisms towards them and he kind of puts his back to them and that's when they shoot him with the Taser," he added....Police walked in calmly, approached Dziekanski and shocked him within about 15 seconds of arriving....The video shows Dziekanski scream and fall to the ground once he is hit with the Taser. "He's on the ground by himself shaking. Three of them [the police officers] pounce on him," he said. "You hear someone yell on the audio, 'Hit him again [with the Taser],'" he added. Pritchard said a security guard blocked his view at this point, though police have said they shocked Dziekanski twice with a Taser.

Pritchard said that during the ensuing struggle on the ground, one of the officers put his leg and knee onto the Polish immigrant's head and neck. "[The officer's] other leg isn't even touching the ground, he's got his full weight on to [Dziekanski's] head and neck," Pritchard said, saying that was the point Dziekanski stopped moving. "I'm wondering -- I mean my opinion doesn't matter -- but there might even be reason to believe that is cause of death right there because that is when he stops moving," he said....

Meanwhile, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association filed a formal complaint against the RCMP on Tuesday, alleging the force misrepresented the facts of Dziekanski's death and that it unnecessarily suppressed Pritchard's video. "The BCCLA is concerned that the RCMP attempted to misrepresent facts and spin a story of the event that would place their officers in a favourable light," civil liberties president Jason Gratl said in a news release Tuesday. "Added to this, the RCMP sought to suppress public disclosure of a video that will likely cast their officers' actions in a very negative light," he added. "This kind of public manipulation is not appropriate nor dignified for Canada's national police force."

On Tuesday, Pritchard said he is just happy to have received the videos back, and even more pleased the public will finally get to see exactly what happened. "I think the police have to be accountable . . . there was absolutely no need to use the Taser here," he said. "Now things can happen and the public can do what they need to do to change the policies and procedures so this never happens again."

CANADA TASER-HERO FUNERAL (funeral for Robert Dziekanski). Nov 17, 2007

COP AIRPORT TASERING SONG

. Stun-gun probe upsets victim's mom ('cops trying to discredit his reputation'). CanCom/AOL, May 10, 2008

Canada cops taser 82-yr-old patient ("corporal said to guys 'Ok, get him', then bang, bang, bang 3 times"). CanadaCom, May 10, 2008. Go to CANADA'S COPS UNLEASHED & ANIMAL FARM DOGS