Video: “Don’t Taze Me To Death, Bro!”
“You hear a man die, obviously.”
Police shocked a Polish immigrant with a Taser about 30 seconds after approaching him at Vancouver International Airport last month, a video released Wednesday shows.
Moments later, three or four officers pinned Robert Dziekanski, 40, to the ground as he screamed and moaned in pain.
“The audio’s sickening,” said Paul Pritchard, 25, a Victoria teacher who was in the airport after a flight from China, and recorded Dziekanski’s death. “His scream is brutal.
“You hear a man die, obviously.”
One officer placed his knees against Dziekanski’s back and neck until he went limp. He later died.
Pritchard arranged to have the footage released to the public in Vancouver on Wednesday.
Vancouver lawyer Walter Kosteckyj, who is acting for the dead man’s mother, said he was appalled by the treatment of Dziekanski, who appeared disoriented but had become agitated after about 10 hours at the airport. He said Zofia Cisowski had seen portions of the video, but not all of it.
“She had a son in distress, he was looking for help, he was frightened, and he didn’t get that help,” Kosteckyj said after releasing the video to the media.
“I was surprised when I saw it. That’s not the right word. I was absolutely shocked. I expected to see some discussion, some attempt to control the situation and then things going sideways.
“What you will see is how quickly things came about. People should judge for themselves.”
Kosteckyj was angry that security guards at the airport were uninterested, and that police made no attempt to defuse the situation before using the Taser.
An American policing expert who saw the video said that the police should have been able to restrain the Polish visitor using their hands.
“I don’t even think batons or mace would have been necessary given that there were four officers on the scene,” said Michael Lyman, a criminal justice professor at Columbia College in Missouri.
Lyman said the police “appeared to take the path of least resistance by deploying the Taser … when they could have controlled this gentleman through physical force techniques that would not have been harmful.”
Lyman, an expert on police procedure who has provided testimony in hundreds of criminal and civil court cases, said there was no evidence in the video that Dziekanski was armed.
“He doesn’t appear to be threatening anybody. But he does appear to be unco-operative and unreasonable,” Lyman said.
But an expert from Bellevue, Wash., said the Taser was a reasonable option for the police given that they couldn’t communicate with him because of the apparent language barrier.
Donald Van Blaricom, former chief of the Bellevue police, also said any attempt to control Dziekanski physically would have been risky, both for him and for the officers.
“Once you take a person into custody, you want to do so with the least amount of struggle because physical struggle can lead to injury or death.”
However, he did suggest the police used the Taser too quickly. “There was no extreme emergency that caused them to move in that fast and take him into custody.”
Canada.com
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O’Reilly pretty much tried to blame the airline, and all airlines, for the egregious delay. Not so sure that excuses this guy throwing stuff around an airport.
Tazing is unlikely to kill anyone. People do it for fun.
November 15th, 2007 at 6:07 pmHere’s what I understand happened. He was held up in customs for 8 hours, after a very long flight (probably close to 12 hours). He didn’t speak any English and by time customs finally let him through, his mother who had come to meet him had left the airport so he had no idea what to do and was unable to communicate with anyone. He was probably exhausted and freaking out. This should never have happened.
November 15th, 2007 at 6:32 pmCouldn’t communicate because of an apparent language barrier ? —
November 15th, 2007 at 6:58 pmThose Canucks would be a big hit down here on the Arizona/Mexico border.
Learn English when coming to North America to make your trip easier. Zasluzylesz sobie, glupku.
November 15th, 2007 at 7:21 pmThere’s no excuse for this guy throwing shit around in an airport. And he’s got no one to blame if he was’t prepared to phone the old lady. What if she had died or crashed her car or couldn’t get to the airport for some reason? Wasn’t he prepared to deal with the obvious potential situation of being there alone?
November 15th, 2007 at 7:56 pmI’m sorry Dean, but there is no way to justify how long they tazed this person for. They obviously could have maintained control when they were on top of him, but they continued to taze him despite. There are plenty ‘what if’ scenario’s, and to use a what if scenario to justify something like this, I don’t think we should do.
November 15th, 2007 at 8:20 pmMore info about it here on a talk radio show.
November 15th, 2007 at 9:55 pmLogan, you are full of shit my friend. He wasn’t tased very long at all and that is a fact. The cops would have never touched him while the current was still being applied or they’d have been lit up as well.
How much do you not know about tasers?
November 15th, 2007 at 11:02 pmOne shot, apparently he’s never pissed on a third rail. Four police should have been able to take him down and get him cuffed. Doesn’t speak well for Vancouver. Sure glad I was banned from Canada.
November 16th, 2007 at 12:43 amRaise shit at an airport… Expect this… No one, especially cops, want to fuck around with belligerent people anymore… Fall in line or fall on the ground…
November 16th, 2007 at 7:31 am