I don’t consider the RCMP to be a good representative of our country anymore. This incident is just one of many problems with the RCMP in recent years. It needs to be overhauled.

And I am fairly certain that the taser has resulted in poorer police work rather than improving it. By that I mean, they are quick to shoot people rather than use their training to immobilze a suspect regardless of the threat. That’s too much work, tasering is much simpler solution. To quote Drago from Rocky IV “If he dies, he dies”.

And when this is all over, I doubt anything will happen to the officers involved.

That said, what is in the video is pretty easy to see, and there’s not much room for interpretation. It gives us a full view of the whole incident, and there is no question that in some way or other, they are responsible for his death.Outnumbering him four to one, with him calmed down, there is no excuse.

No one should be above the law, and that includes police.

I don’t know if the RCMP did the right thing. I don’t really know anything about the situation. I will reserve my judgement.

I do know that when police tackle someone to bring them down it can lead to the same result.

I do know that small innocuous item like a stapler or a telephone cord can turn into very dangerous weapons.

I do know that the police and the RCMP are essential in our society and I don’t think that anyone who has ever been faced with a situation in which you required their assistance would say otherwise.

Quoting HelpmeJebus:

I seriously doubt if they didn’t have a taser they would have shot an agitated man. It just like trampolines with nets around them.(trampoline without net = gun, trampoline with net = taser) If you have a net you’re going to do things you wouldn’t do if you didn’t have a net. Because of the net you can bounce around recklessly without having to worry about falling off the side (even though you still can). But if there was no net you wouldn’t bounce around so recklessly because you can fall off the sides so you work within the confines you have. So, if didn’t have tasers its reasonable to assume that they would not have fired their guns unless their lives were in direct danger and if they did they would have shot to kill because the police have stated countless times that they aim for the chest because its nearly impossible to shoot someone in the arm or leg in situations like that. Because tasers are supposedly non-lethal they are used in situations that a gun would not be used, even though they are intended to be a replacement to lethal force.

Of course they wouldn’t have shot him. My point was that if their intention was to kill this man they would have shot him and not opted for the Taser.

Your analogy holds true: they worked within their confines and one of their options was the Taser. And police do not shoot unless they fear for death or grievous bodily harm - lethal force. They shoot to stop, center of mass is the largest area on the human body and, since a shooting is such a high stress situation, people revert back to muscle memory and the training police undergo focuses on that.

And further, the Taser is not a a replacement to lethal force (there can be no replacement), it is simply another tool accessible to police.

It should be noted that pending further investigation of the Vancouver incident, Newfoundland has suspended it’s RCMP’s use of the taser….saw it on Global.

Actually, the RNC suspended their order of the taser. They don’t even have them yet and have decided to wait and see what the fallout is before ordering this expensive item.

1) Fatigued, irritated man in a foreign country where he does not speak the language is agitated and damages airport property
2) Four Police officers respond. Man is very briefly confronted. When he does not comply to the requests he presumably can’t understand, he is tasered.
3) Man is tasered at least one more time, and held on the ground with a knee to his neck.
4) Man loses consciousness and dies soon after.

Now…
Why did the officers deem it necessary to use a taser? This is what really is escaping me in the situation. It seemed like that was their first reaction, which really shouldn’t have been the case.

Aren’t there any interpreters in the International Airport? Surely this isnt the first time a situation like this has arisen.

The police are in the wrong, no matter how you try to spin it. Excessive force was used. It was pretty clear from the video that the man did not have violent intentions towards any of the people around, so why would he be aggressive towards the RCMP?

The police officers did kill a man. I don’t know where exactly you think they didn’t, but by their actions….someone died. That means they killed them. Repeating that fact does not mean that anyone thinks or has insinuated that said police officers were motivated to kill him or wanted to kill him. And once again, to state that any of us has said as much is missing the point completely. If you insist on misunderstanding this, I suspect we have nothing further to say to one another due to an inability to communicate on a very basic level. Which is, I say “no” and you insist that I’m saying “yes”.

De-escalation does start at the bottom. I’m, glad you agree. Even if you have a vast number of snipers, the person making contact still says hello and asks if anyone would like a cup of coffee. Or, in the absence of any hostages, you ensure that the person does not injure themselves. But the primary factor is to not prejudge any situation and enter each new area as calmly as possible, letting the intended target know that you will let him/her take the time to step back to a more receptive state. This is where I abandon my hostage negotiator example, because you seem to have gotten off track. It was used to demonstrate how skills to deamplify a situation are used correctly day in and day out. You stated that there are other people backing them up, so I assume you mean to say that it is easier to be calm knowing that if you need it…there are alternatives. I fail to see how 4 armed police officers against one man who allegedly grabbed a stapler is any different. Those police officers had alternatives should de-escalation fail them. And we will never know if it would have worked, because every last one of those officers failed to implement it.

You mentioned “verbal judo”, and then made a comment which essentially stated that none of it works on a non-English speaking person. I will agree. Trying to converse with someone usually doesn’t work unless they speak your language. But then, and once again, we’ll never know because not only did the four officers present not make any attempt to physically calm the person, they failed to, after the man had been in custody at customs for a very long period of time, get a proper translator. As I mentioned previously, a simple fucking look at his passport would have identified his native language. This could have been accomplished in customs when he was held for hours, or by the police officers had they chosen a different way to approach the man. A great many people failed Mr. Dziekanski. The police officers were just the ones who pulled the final trigger, so to speak.

In response to your enquiry as to when the last time I entered an unknown volatile situation was, I assume only to chalk anything I’ve stated up to some sort of dismissal because I may lack the proper qualifications, I will answer with this. I wish I had no experience. But I do. And regardless of my own personal experience with volatile situations, I am willing to entertain and accept any personal opinion that is presented logically. if you aren’t, it doesn’t affect me whatsoever.

But the tragic death of Mr. Dziekanski continues to.

the taser is a non- leathal use of force.

Guess it isn’t, is it?

Anyhow, I’m off to work now and am quite sure I’ve overstayed my welcome here.

I’ll leave it to you guys…have a great day.

And kanji, these comments are typical not for people with the wondrous liberal mindset, but for people who have seen the evidence for what it is.

-Even if they “didn’t mean to” - they did. What part of this is so hard to understand…this isn’t a “woopsie, we didn’t mean to”. Someone’s mother is dealing with this today and it just doesn’t cut it for her. It’s so easy to throw out “tragic outcomes yes”…but those tragic outcomes are someone’s family member. You don’t just move past them and say “oh well, they didn’t mean it, they have a tough job” and add up the numbers.

I’m sure police encounter people “freaking out” everyday but it doesn’t mean they should end up dead. And, when they do, you’d better believe the public has every right to demand answers.

“If I went into an establishment, started throwing shit around and was very agitated I would expect to receive that kind of response.”

-I’m sure it’s quite easy for you to sit back and say that…but if you were in an agitated, confused, exhausted state then it would be different - you’re not and this man was. The words are easy to type on a keyboard but to put yourself in this man’s shoes, you might feel a little differently about having a knee in your neck when you really just needed some help. You’d expect that?

Don’t get me wrong - I know it must not be easy to wrestle a big, agitated man like that. But four to one? As someone said awhile back…maybe they’re not in shape to do the job if they had that much trouble between four of them.

“I mean, to the police it was probably easiest to do things that way….rather than hold up the area trying to figure out what was wrong”

-Should the police take the “easiest” route or the one that will render the best outcome for all, even if it takes a little more time/effort? And what do you mean, “hold up the area”? There was no one in the area, so it shouldn’t have been a problem.

Believe me, I don’t think police should’ve sat around drinking tea with the man. But I do think they should’ve:

a) made more of an effort to communicate with him (non verbally, when they figured out that he didn’t understand)

b) used the 4 men to subdue him without pulling a weapon or putting a knee to his neck

Harder that way?…maybe. But perhaps a man would still be alive today?

“I remember an incident not too long ago (cant remember the specifics) where after two of his fellow officers were struck and rendered unconscious, a police officer shot a man who was wielding some kind of chain.”

-Yes, and that man suffered from mental illness. Should he be dead?

(you can see, I feel rather strongly about this issue)

Is there any room for trying to understand another human’s perspective before taking violent action?

When there is plenty of time in which to ponder the situation, you’d think that another approach could have been taken here. Nobody was in imminent danger. That much is clear.

The tasering was disturbing. But I think for me, even more disturbing is that despite already being subdued, a knee was apparently (by Pritchard’s account) placed on the man’s neck. I find it interesting that so much attention is being put on the use of the taser, which I agree was unnecessary. But the thing of greater importance in my opinion should be the act that caused death, which would appear to be the knee on the neck.

But I’ll go ahead and reiterate - I find the use of the taser in this situation absolutely overkill. The man was outnumbered, wasn’t about to go anywhere, didn’t have any weapons, and didn’t seem to be an imminent danger to anyone other than perhaps himself, in a legal way (due to the repercussions of the damages he had inflicted on the equipment).

Just to add something here….I hardly think the Police meant to kill anyone. Im no expert when it comes to the taser gun, but I hardly think it is a lethal weapon. If anything, its kinda a freak accident that the man died from the taser gun. In his current state, the police did what they could to subdue the man. If I went into an establishment, started throwing shit around and was very agitated I would expect to receive that kind of response. I mean, to the police it was probably easiest to do things that way….rather than hold up the area trying to figure out what was wrong….I hardly think they meant to kill the guy with the taser. For all we know, those cops are probably disturbed as hell that it did kill him. Im not sure who said it, but an excellent point was brought up that the video was edited, so we do not know the whole story. Tragic outcomes yes, but I swear to god this condemnation for the police officers is pure garbage. They get way to much shit for doing their jobs. I remember an incident not too long ago (cant remember the specifics) where after two of his fellow officers were struck and rendered unconscious, a police officer shot a man who was wielding some kind of chain. There was major backlash from the public and media about it. And again, Ill say if I struck down two police officers I would expect to receive some kind of voilent reaction back towards me to subdue me and protect the public. I sure as hell would not expect the police to back off while some translator comes down to try and calm me down and talk me out of my erratic behaviour…this is classic damned if they do damned if they dont scenario, and some of the comments are just typical from the wonderous liberal mindset…

The problem is that they don’t try to subdue with their mouths first! That’s what people are upset about. The police have an attitude of “Do as I say, now, regardless of whether I am right or wrong or violating your rights or whether you understand me or not. If you don’t, I will take you down, swift, fast, powerful.” Many times this is NOT necessary, but many (NOT ALL) love to do it because it feeds their desire to exert power.

This is not a damned if you do/don’t.

They don’t try hard enough to remain calm. When you have professionals who train police comment on the stats, you’ll see how the police do not handle things as well as they should. Blame it on ego, training, “stress of their jobs”, whatever you choose.

The point everyone makes is that they could have handled this differently and chose not to!

24 seconds is NOT enough time to calm someone down. 4 guys! 4 guys all padded up, you tell me that they couldn’t even spend 5 minutes talking first? Just 5 minutes?

Did he rush anyone? NO!

So I am sorry, but they are to uphold the law! To be professional means you love the law, you honour the law, and you would NEVER break the law (as opposed to trying to cover your ass, let’s not forget the SPP summit incident!).

That is severely lacking these days! The public does not trust police and they in turn develop an attitude. Well, why not ditch the attitude, follow the book (yeah, no speeding when unwarranted - legally they CAN’T, see the highway traffic act, and when you use the police vehicle to steal, you don’t just lose your job, you go to jail! - but not in Windsor, he just lost his job — NO sympathy! Sorry, you stole you go to jail, cop or non-cop!), and when one of your own makes a mistake, you don’t cover it up, you show that as a Unit, a Force, a PUBLIC SERVICE, you owe respect to public and honour the law, thus you punish in accordance to the law!

Do you think my fellow Engineers try to save one another when someone cuts corners? Yeah, ask the PEO what they would do? Ask them what the fellows are supposed to do when they know of a violation, especially when it comes to public safety!

They turn your ass in! Because they do not want their reputation, respect, and honour ruined by someone cutting corners, or in the case of some officers (NOT ALL), violating the laws they vowed to uphold!

Quoting Matthew Good:

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Given the video, they should be charged with manslaughter at the very least.

You people are unbelievable. Manslaughter? Thank god we don’t go based on the simple video. There were portions missing (editted) and his previous behaviour was not captured on film. Not to mention the integral part where the cameraman was moving to try and get a better view.

You people seem to think that the use of force is some sort of step principle where you must go through a progression before moving on to the next. You don’t start at the bottom and work your way up, you begin at the appropriate level. To suggest that the four RCMP weren’t provided with some background is to believe that they are indeed cowboys just looking for a scrap. Do you honestly believe that these four Mounties wanted to kill someone? That they would be so reckless and then cavalier about the death of someone?

You are not in a position to see the hands (the threat area) of the dead guy and if it can be articulated, and I’m fairly certain it will be, that this guy was exhibiting combative behaviour, then the use of the taser is justified.

Perhaps you would have preferred to see this guy get thumped out and then dog-piled? The taser is used as an intermediary control technique that puts the risk to the police and the suspect at a minimum. Its use and the death of this man is at best a spurious correlation. If the baton or pepper spray had been used it would have been just as likely that this man would have died.

Police deal with people at their worst; maybe you people should walk a beat one time or work a reserve and deal with somebody who is freaking out. But I suppose you would all be at an advantage since your mind-reading and hind-sight is so perfect. Assholes.

People freaking out? Hey, ever heard of people with mental illness, like schitzophrenia? Well, how many times to police deal with that? How many times do the police deal with drugged up, high, enraged, bodybuilder-strength perps?

Try working in the psych ward as a nurse! Don’t call people assholes for dictating how professionals should behave! It’s called trying to avoid a confrontation and violence, that’s what they should be doing! Many, NOT ALL, are no different from bouncers in a dive bar. You can see it in their stance, in their attitude, in their demeanor, and they reek of arrogance and power-hunger. Again, NOT ALL. (And yeah, I have two cops in the family who’ve been on the force for 30 years, so do not come at me with “you don’t know what you’re talking about”).

Nurses deal with patients that are just as strong as John Kordic when he died, took 9 cops to hold him down! And that’s a small patient! Yet, the nurses and orderlies handle themselves without beatings, without tasers!

Ever hear about the Japanese Riot Police? Yeah they study Aikido, not marksmanship!

But thanks for your input!