Kamloops, B.C.–Hundreds of people packed a funeral home here yesterday to both grieve and express their outrage over the death of Robert Dziekanski, the Polish man who died last month at the Vancouver airport.
Many of those attending the memorial service in Kamloops, the town where Dziekanski was supposed to start his new life in Canada, only knew him through the lens of a video camera.
Millions of people around the world saw the video of his last moments – a panic-stricken man barricading himself into the international arrivals hall before police shot him with a Taser gun.
His mother, Zofia Cisowski, wiped away her tears to quietly narrate a slideshow of Dziekanski's photographs shown during the memorial celebration of the 40-year-old man's life.
"That's my brother, that's my uncle, that's us,"Cisowski whispered to pictures of her son, a smiling, swarthy man, arms wrapped around family in his native Poland.
Cisowski had worked for seven years to save up enough money to sponsor her son.
He was supposed to look after her and support her as she aged, according to Maciej Krych, Poland's consul general in Vancouver.
"The people in Poland are still in shock. They cannot believe something like this could happen in Canada,"said Krych, who vowed that the Polish government will continue pressing the federal department of foreign affairs for answers.
Dziekanski was cremated following a private funeral two weeks ago. His mother, who plans to keep part of her son's ashes with her in Kamloops and return part to Poland, said she hopes some good comes from her son's death.
When Yuri Baltakis, a friend of Cisowski, got up to speak at the memorial service, he said a few words in Polish and nearly half the mourners raised their right hand.
"Most of you are confused and can't follow that simple instruction," said Baltakis. "That is what it was like for him for nine hours at the airport."
Mother and son were separated at the airport by just a few hundred feet behind frosted windows and security doors.
But because of language difficulties and poor signage, neither could find the other.
After hours of searching, Cisowski made the four-hour drive back to Kamloops hoping there would be a message waiting from her son.
Baltakis said yesterday that the airport should have had people on staff who could provide help or at least direct someone like Dziekanski, who had taken his first flight from Poland to Canada, to a phone where he could call for directions.
At the service, Joseph and Maria Drobina, who emigrated from Poland a year ago, said they had a similar experience. Just two days before Dziekanski arrived at the airport, Joseph Drobina's sister, who did not speak any English, could not find anyone to help her.
"She had travelled before but there was no effort from anyone at the airport to help her or help us try to connect," said Maria Drobina. "When we heard what happened to Zofia's son, we knew this will happen to other people, and pray to God it will not be the same tragedy."
Among the nearly 300 people who attended the memorial service, a handful were outside carrying signs urging the RCMP to ban the use of Taser guns.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has ordered a review of the weapon, but has resisted calls by critics galvanized by Dziekanski's death for a moratorium on the guns, which deliver 50,000 volts of electricity to their targets. Since 2002, Amnesty International, which has advocated banning Tasers, reports that 17 people have died in Canada as a result of the weapon.
A preliminary autopsy done on Dziekanski showed that he had no drugs or alcohol in his system, but a definitive cause of death has not yet been determined.
A coroner's inquest will be held in May.
With files from The Canadian Press
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