Airport Taser Death vid

[ollie]

I'm probably going to rock the boat-but the man that was tasered was totally out of control.

Not so out of control that an older woman wasn't able to approach him in an attempt to reconcile the situation before the police arrived.

He was throwing chairs and a computer in a public space. He was tasered twice-and then died. Thinking from a cop's point of view-if someone is being that violent, how are you to subdue them without getting harm to yourself? One toss of an object-and there goes your teeth, vision etc...

Lots of work involves physical risk. I expect a little more grit out of our RCMP.

Anyone consider the man might have been mentally ill?

The police could have done a lot more to diffuse the situation before it came down to the option that was chosen. Most reports indicate Robert Dziekanski had been held in the secure area for hours. They should have been able to wait longer to bring in a translator which would have helped diffuse the situation and most likely lead to a positive outcome. Have we all gotten that fucking impatient?

[bouche]

Basically, the Rules of Engagement have changed. I'm starting to understand that the first step is to break out the Taser no matter what. The point here is that 4 goddamn RCMP should be trained enough to bring the situation under control without lazily shooting out tazer darts.

Sorry Marco. This was titled based on the actual title of the news story that I was linking to. I didn't dream the shit up. But my comment on the fact that you do not see someone die was to reassure Booche that you don't see someone die here. you really don't visually see death. You see a sequence of events that lead up to a tragic death.

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i hope the RCMP officers involved get the maximum punishment allowed and i hope police forces seriously review their use of force requirements.

[Velvet]

I'm probably going to rock the boat-but the man that was tasered was totally out of control. He was throwing chairs and a computer in a public space. He was tasered twice-and then died. Thinking from a cop's point of view-if someone is being that violent, how are you to subdue them without getting harm to yourself? One toss of an object-and there goes your teeth, vision etc... Now I know that's a lot less than death, but the people's intentions were not to kill the man. The autopsy will show if the man was on an type of drugs; this seems to be a big factor in taser deaths. Anyway-I'm not too sure if I see it completely as police violation or not. Pepper spray has killed people before as well (I've been pepper sprayed-it ain't fun).

The way it looks from here is the man was throwing things around before the cops arrived, and they seemed uninterested in being briefed by the witnesses. So it seems that as far as they knew he had not yet been violent.

It looks to me like they showed up, surrounded him, and tased him without trying anything else first.

Amazing how the whole country seems to mourn when a cop gets killed for no reason but not much happens when the cops kill for no reason.

Mark my words - these officers will recieve suspensions with pay as their worst punishment.

[bouche]

Amazing how the whole country seems to mourn when a cop gets killed for no reason but not much happens when the cops kill for no reason.

I was engaged in a conversation after work today where someone brought up the exact same sentence.

[djmelbatoast]

There used to be a radio show on independent public radio in Toronto called "Bad Cop, No Doughnut" that we syndicated on our station out here. The show was pretty much just a laundry list of offences that police officers had committed in Canada and America that week.

There was always though an interview segment which was 9 times out of 10 about the use of tasers and the flimsy science that the company that sold them would churn out.

The show got shut down about a year ago by the police, incidentally, because a radio play seemed too realistic to them and they arrived at the studio as if there were a hostage situation, then pressured the management to take the show off of the air.

Now I wasn't taking a tally or anything, but it seemed to me that every single week for over a year that I listened to the show, there were between 2 and 5 taser deaths at the hands of the police. That is every week. I don't see any reason why these numbers would have decreased in the last year.

To me even if only one in one thousand die as the result of a tasering, that is still too many if 3 or 4 thousand people get tasered each week.

I don't want to ramble, but I saw on the news the other day the official police procedures for using a taser. Apparently, even if you just take a step away or lean backwards from a police officer they are justified in tasering the hell out of you.

[bouche]

whether or not the guy in this other story needed a tasering, getting plucked in the eye doesn't seem necessary either.

[larry_llama]

You can draw a gun and fire it at a person's leg to "subdue them" as well, so maybe that shoul dbe allowed too! Occasionally someone might bleed to death but that's the cost of doing business I guess.

Tasering should be treated exactly the same way as pulling a gun. Clearly it is not unlikely that the subject might be seriously harmed or killed depending on officer skill and blind luck.

Regarding the video, I was reluctant to watch it based on the sensationalist nature of its "promotion" but I highly recommend everyone see it.

You do see him fall to the ground and hear him screaming but it's not a close up of someone dying. 95% of the video is the lead up to the tasering. If you wdon't want to see him fall, you can stop it as soon as the cop pulls the taser.

If you don't see the video you have no right to back up either the cops or the victim.

I fully understand that being a cop can be BS work a lot of the time, dealing with morons, criminals and even killers. But it's pretty clear from this guy's body language that he was not targeting his anger toward any particular individual, so the likelihood of a single cop or bystander getting hurt by him would be dictated more by chance than anything else. (i.e. you happened to be in the path of a chair that he kicked out of frustration).

If the reports of his being confined for "up to 10 hours without food or water" are true, then I can easily understand his frustration.

Watch the video and you will see what an absurd and sickening situation this is.

This video made me embarrassed to be Canadian.

[larry_llama]

sidenote: I hope that more and more videos of police behaviour end up on youtube.

In fact, I think police should have to wear a large visible ID number on their uniforms so that they are easily identified in videos and easily identified form a distance by citizens who encounter them for whatever reason. I license plate for cops if you will.

Police seem to be very timid when it comes to having videos or photos taken while they work. As far as I'm concerned, their work as public servants should be subject to public scrutiny, and the more transparent the "reporting" the better. A good officer should be 100% supportive of being 100% accountable. A good officer would also be so confident in his behaviour that he should be able to laugh when he sees someone taping him because he knows that in the end, everyone else will look like a buffoon when compared to him. If he is worried about "how it will look on tape" then he needs to change his act off tape.

In the end, police are the only people who are given a "license" to harm another human. There needs to be a lot more accountability associated with this privilege.

[ollie]

In the end, police are the only people who are given a "license" to harm another human. There needs to be a lot more accountability associated with this privilege.

Totally. This "close ranks to protect our own" mentality has got to go. I understand the need for them to show solidarity but when the transgression is this outrageous it just hurts the credibility of the entire organization.

[larry_llama]

comment over on stillepost about "bad salesmen get fired, bad cops should too"

I fully agree. This suspension with pay BS has got to go...

I'd love to fuck something up on my job and be suspended with pay! That would be great. Only difference with my job is, no one dies, just someone's computer stops working.

[Velvet]

I fully understand that being a cop can be BS work a lot of the time, dealing with morons, criminals and even killers.

You mean their co-workers, right?

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This video made me embarrassed to be Canadian.

How?

[meggo]

ugh. with four RCMP officers and one apparently unarmed man, this does seem excessive. it is really too bad they didn't have a translator to help.

that being said - i am not 100% against tasers being used. this past summer there was an incident with someone that i know who is mentally ill; he was having major paranoid delusions that the police [and everyone] were out to get him. when the police eventually had to be called because it was believed he could be a danger to himself and others, he thought they'd come to kill him, like his fears had been realized. at that point he was fighting, he thought, for his life. the police had to taser him three times to get him under control. although death is a possibility with tasers, i think the risk of death would have been much higher if they only had their guns and no alternative.

as an aside, the CBC reported earlier this evening that 17 people have been killed by tasers in canada.

[larry_llama]

How?

Well, basically, as international news, this could easily be spun (or interpreted [or simplified]) as "Unarmed man immigrating to Canada spends 10 hours at the airport before being tasered to death by four RCMP officers who don't even bother to attempt to communicate with him." It kinda makes Canada not appear to be a very tolerant, welcoming or friendly to visitors.

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I think it makes the 4 RCMP officers appear to be intolerant, not Canada as a whole. That is a giant stretch, IMO.

if Canada were a lesser country this could be common, it wouldn't be reported, and there wouldn't be widespread concern.

[larry_llama]

Ya but we live here and we understand that. It's not that huge a stretch. It puts into question RCMP training and accountability. At least it does in my mind...

[Kanada Kev]

Taser incidents are happening all over the place. I'm sure many are justified, but so many simply seem to be ways for officers to find the "easy" way to get a job done at the expense of a civilian's pain. Listen to the conversation and you can hear how the officer didn't tell him what he was being arrested for, give him his Miranda Rights, etc., etc. Wonder how this one got resolbed in court.

Take a look at this one from Utah where a guy was getting written up for a simple speeding ticket. The officer wanted him to sign-off on the ticket and he refused. Then, he didn't want to be cuffed so he gets tasered. I don't know, but it seems like a patrol man should have some other options here in order to maintain safety for all indivuals. When the guy gets hit, he falls onto the highway!!! That shit could have caused a major accident/fatality.

Edited November 21, 2007 by Guest

[Davey Boy 2.0]

it's like those times when you were a teen and you ran out of dope and you knew the town was pretty dry. sure you could go out and try to pick up a gram off of your local guy but you could also just clean out the dust buster and suck up the fragments from the basement carpet around where you usually roll.

if i were a cop i'd be tasering people in line in front of me at the supermarket

[bradm]

if i were a cop i'd be tasering people in line in front of me at the supermarket

Anybody/everybody, or just those with too many items for the express check-out?

Aloha,

Brad

[Davey Boy 2.0]

yes

[bradm]

if i were a cop i'd be tasering people in line in front of me at the supermarket

How about the beer store or liquor store?

Aloha,

Brad

[Davey Boy 2.0]

that would be crass