Shocked and Appalled

In any controversy involving police officers, I almost always side with the cops.

Not this time.

I won't show the video here. Chances are you've seen it by now, and if you haven't, it's easily enough found: just Google "Vancouver taser". Fair warning: it's profoundly disturbing.

In fact, it disgusted me.

I read that the family of the late Robert Dziekanski has retained the services of a lawyer. Good. I hope the relevant parties in this fiasco are sued to within an inch of their solvencies.

Put yourself in the place of those cops, who had to have been briefed before they went in and within twenty five seconds tasered the man. You're told a Polish man, who speaks no English, has been in a secure area of Vancouver International Airport for ten hours. He's scared, frustrated, and increasingly angry. I for one can't blame him. He has no idea why he's being detained, or why he can't see his mother, who is just meters away. At one point, he picks up a computer and tosses it to the ground...not at anyone, mind you. A few passersby try to help, but nobody has made the slightest effort to find someone, anyone, fluent in Polish who can calm the man down...such as his mother, just meters away.

Welcome to Canada. Now, die.

Spare me the argument the police didn't mean to kill the guy, since a taser isn't normally classed a lethal weapon. By now we all know tasers can be lethal, and it is my firm belief that any force at all was totally unnecessary. Yes, the man was frustrated, and potentially violent. A few words in Polish would have worked wonders.

I've tried and tried to put myself in the officers' place, and I just can't do it. They were told Robert Dziekanski spoke no English--that's clearly heard on the video--and they swagger in like members of the LAPD, taser him twice, and while he's keening in pain, kneel on his neck.

This has become an international incident, and rightfully so. It should go without saying, but the actions of these police officers do not represent a Canadian attitude towards immigrants from anywhere. I for one would really like to hear the officers' side of the story...not that I can think of one.