RCMP lie about circumstances surrounding taser death

CBC item as aired on October 15, 2007 - the day after Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski was tasered to death by police in the Vancouver International Airport. This story was broadcast before police were aware a video of the incident would become public.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre is seen giving the official version of events. There is a consistent effort to mislead people into believing the police witnessed - and were threatened by - Mr Dziekanski's actions in throwing a computer and a table, when the tape clearly shows police did not arrive until after these events. At one point in the briefing Lemaitre even claimed "The officers were using gestures saying, you know, relax, relax, put your hands on the desk there where the computer was taken; to no avail, [he was] still throwing things around".
Sgt. LeMaitre gave more misinformation to the Vancouver Sun when he told a reporter there "The officers tried to speak to him, tried to calm him down, but he continued to throw things around and yell and scream." It is unclear whether investigators were misled by the officers involved, or whether Sgt. Lemaitre's claims were part of an intentional disinformation strategy.

The situation is compounded by the numerous demonstrably false claims by reporter Chris Brown:
- only three officers were involved
- when the victim 'continued struggling' he was handcuffed, with no mention of his being tasered a second time
- it was unsafe to use pepper spray because of all the other people around
- there is no video surveillance in the Vancouver International Airport

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Taser
• death
• Vancouver
• airport
• RCMP

[4kout]

The RCMP never even atttempted diplomacy (you know any type of communication!), they went for shooting first before asking questions! If the guy had been there for 10 hrs they had plenty of time to try & communicate with him instead of holding him all that time without any communication!

[lynx9595]

wow everything that was said in this was a lie.

[arteest103]

"There are no surveillance cameras..." Ha.

[stone8675309]

they might have tryed talking but alot of cops are looking for a reson to fuck somone up.

[420chronmasta]

all they had todo was tackle the fucking guy not taser him, lazy fucking cops

[Napalmreaper]

A portable electric chair. Kills slower and more painful though. What a horrific torture device!

[lejink]

not only that, the police took no action for some time to stabilize the man. he was clearly in trouble when he stopped responding.

once someone is in police custody the care of that person is their responsability.

they failed on that, and should own up.

what if i have a heart attack well in a jail cell and get left there n die. id say after tasering the first step should be to check the persons in stable condition and can handle police piling on top of him.

[AbortedArtist]

No one else was around, tragically the RCMP made a mistake that resulted in a senseless death and now won't own up to it. The video shows no threat once the police arrive and no one else around. There was no need to use the tazer...

[BlueandWhite35]

there wasnt to many people in the area for pepper spray they put the man in a seperate room by himself because he was causing a scene so it would have been just the cops and him in the room. How is a taser not a lethal weapon like what is that bullshit its killed over 16 people already.

[cvmkyle]

word to Bond