The most recent first ..
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, November 24, 2007
VANCOUVER - The Canada Border Services Agency will release its report Monday into the death of a Polish man after he was hit twice with a Taser and restrained by four RCMP officers at the Vancouver International Airport.
The internal report was ordered by Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day after Robert Dziekanski, 40, died at the airport Oct. 14, about 10 hours after he arrived in Canada from Poland.
Since the incident, the CBSA has faced criticism over how the Polish immigrant wandered alone in a secure area for 10 hours without being helped.
And last week, a graphic video showing Dziekanski's death, shot by Victoria resident Paul Pritchard, prompted an international outcry over police conduct and the use of Tasers after it was made public.
Alain Jolicoeur, CBSA's president, and other senior officials "will hold a technical briefing to release an internal report and to outline the actions to be taken following the events at Vancouver International Airport," a news release said today.
In addition to the CBSA report, several other government groups are looking into the death, including the RCMP and the commissioner for complaints against the RCMP.
Also a B.C. coroner's inquest has been set for May. The inquest jury cannot make any findings that carry criminal culpability, but jurors can offer recommendations to prevent similar deaths, Terry Foster, communications officer for the B.C. Coroner's Service, has said.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=36f40b2d-ffec-4...
John Les has also announced a public inquiry and hopefully unlike the Bingogate one it will actually release a report to the public.
National class action suit against TASER, Int.
author: Debbie Russell
National Class Action Suit--possible growing list of Police Depts/plaintiffs--against Taser, In. based on false advertising. Meanwhile, Taser, Int. admits death can occur - while saying they've known all along. ; now that first coronor rules taser as primary cause of death. Austin beginning to recognize it's first death - a year ago.
National Class Action lawsuit:
http://www.law.com/jsp/printerfriendly.jsp?c=LawArticle&t=PrinterFrie...
and more 'surprises' outlined in this week's Chronicle, Naked City-she
does make note of our year-old Taser death:
Multiple tases may kill
BY JORDAN SMITH
Repeated Taser shocks "may impair" breathing and may lead to death, according to a new safety bulletin published by Arizona-based Taser International Inc., the leading manufacturer of electro-shock weapons used by nearly 7,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide. In a June 28 bulletin, the company warned that "repeated, prolonged and/or continuous exposure to the Taser may cause strong muscle contractions that may impair breathing and respiration, particularly when the [weapon's metal] probes are placed across the chest or diaphragm," The Arizona Republic reported on July 30. In previous training manuals, however, "Taser . told police to use repeated shocks to control a suspect," the daily reported. The bulletin also warns
that multiple shocks and corresponding muscle contractions could cause injury to "tissues, organs, bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, joints and stress/compression fractures to bones," reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Nonetheless, Tom Smith, Taser's founder and president, told the J-C that the warning is "nothing new" and is merely a regular training update. "We are just being more specific than we were before," Smith said.
Nonetheless, the warning was posted the same day a Chicago, Ill., medical examiner ruled that the February death of 54-year-old Ronald Hasse was an electrocution caused by two Taser jolts delivered by a Chicago police sergeant. The ruling marks the first time that a medical examiner has listed a jolt from the electro-shock weapon as the primary cause of death.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Cook Co. Deputy Medical Examiner Scott Denton reported that Hasse received a five-second jolt, followed by a second, 57-second charge. Hasse was intoxicated on methamphetamine at the time, the daily reported, but it was the Taser, not the drugs, that ultimately caused his death - the Taser, Denton said, was what "pushed [Hasse] over the edge." The Sun-Times further reported that Denton plans to meet with Chicago PD officials this week to "suggest" that Tasers not be used on people who "are acting psychotic or appear to be under the influence of drugs." In fact, many of the people who've died after being shocked by
Tasers have been determined to have had drugs in their system - including the Austin case of Abel Perez, who was tased several times and later died.
The autopsy listed "accidental overdose" as the cause of death.
http://www.law.com/jsp/printerfriendly.jsp?c=LawArticle&t=PrinterFrie...
news:zhS0j.19988$fD.19941@pd7urf3no...
exercise. In the Province today one of the columnists reported that his fellow cabinet ministers are rumoured to be very unhappy with how the Solicitor-General has handled things. One columnist is reporting that police are afraid for their safety and that cruisers have been pelted with eggs because ppl are angry over this incident. I haven't seen any news reports of that. Has anyone else? Also Les has decided to review the idea >of getting a United Metro Police Force to replace all the local and RCMP ones. He was against the idea two weeks ago.
Basically he said that on any issue he's seen in the past, the public opinion and calls to him are divided 50/50.
On this issue, however, he says almost EVERYONE is very critical of the Police and feels the attack on Robert was unjustified, the only people supporting the Police actions are Police officers, or family members of an officer.
Today, Firefighters at YVR are mad they weren't called to perform CPR, as he
could have been saved.
http://cknw.com/news/news_local.cfm?cat=7428218912&rem=79872&red=8012...
This, despite assurances from Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day they would release their report into the taser death of Robert Dziekanski by today.
The Canada Border Services Agency booked a conference room at Robson Square, but anyone arriving today would have found the room locked and empty.
Staff at the conference centre confirm the agency booked and cancelled twice this week.
Border services has not yet commented on Dziekanski's death at YVR, even though it's been six weeks since the incident.
BC’s Solicitor General has expressed concern about the lack of information from border services.
Earlier this week, John Les told Christy Clark the public needs to know what happened during the hours when Dziekanski was in the airport's secured areas.
Stockwell Day's office has now promised to give media 24-hours notice of future news conferences into the taser incident.
I'm disgusted that the Police didn't try CPR or ANYTHING else. They just
stood there as he lay unconscious and died. They could have saved him.
| National Post |
Monday, November 19, 2007
VANCOUVER -- Minutes after Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski picked up a Vancouver airport computer and threw it at a glass wall, a Polish-speaking airport worker wandered into the airport's operations centre to pick up some paperwork.
Slovakian immigrant Karol Vrba was in the room on Oct. 14 when the pair of calls came in reporting Mr. Dziekanski's erratic behaviour, but was never asked to help, even though he is conversant in both Polish and Russian, the language bystanders told authorities the 40-year-old Pole was speaking.
"I feel really upset because I saw that video of what they did to him and it could have been prevented. Definitely," he said Monday.
Mr. Vrba's story comes as British Columbia's Solicitor General and Public Safety Minister John Les announced Monday the province will conduct a full public inquiry into Mr. Dziekanski's death, bringing to five the number of official investigations into the airport killing.
Mr. Vrba spoke to the National Post because, almost exactly a month after Mr. Dziekanski died, he was fired. He believes it may be because he spoke out about the fact that he could have helped. The airport told him he was "unsuitable for the job," an employment mark he says will make it nearly impossible for him to find work as a firefighter, a profession he had been training for as part of his airport duties.
"I'm pretty much screwed for doing nothing. I don't deserve it," he said.
Michele Mawhinny, vice-president of human resources for the Vancouver Airport Authority, said yesterday she could not comment on Mr. Vrba's allegations.
"Under privacy laws it really does prevent us from commenting on an employment matter," she said, noting that under the authority's collective agreement there is a grievance procedure that workers can follow if they are unhappy with any element of their employment.
Walter Kosteckyj, a Polish-Canadian lawyer who is representing Mr. Dziekanski's mother and serves as the family's spokesman, was in court Monday and not available for comment.
On the night Mr. Dziekanski died, Mr. Vrba stepped into the airport operations centre to pick up some papers he needed for his duties as an airfield operations specialist. At that moment, he was heading out to note the tail numbers of the planes parked at airport gates for the night. He was there when the calls came in advising of a disturbance in the international arrivals area, but left soon after.
The widely circulated video of Mr. Dziekanski's death contains at least nine references to "Russian," including two after the RCMP arrived, when one voice can be heard saying as the officers passed by, "he speaks Russian and that's it. No English."
Less than a minute later, Mr. Dziekanski, who had thrown a folding chair and a computer before police were called, was hit with a Taser and fell to the ground. He later died.
But Mr. Vrba, who immigrated in 1999 and had worked at the airport since July, was not asked to help, and he said a call did not go out for anyone else who spoke Russian or Polish to help, either. Busy with his work, he did not return to the operations centre until after Mr. Dziekanski had died.
"When I came back I say, 'what happened? They said there was some Polish guy or Russian guy. I speak Russian, so I say, 'OK, why didn't you call me if I could help?'"Mr. Vrba said. He speaks with an obvious East European accent.
And in yet another of the layers of missed opportunity that surround Mr. Dziekanski's death, a different airport worker told the Post that one of the security workers who watched as RCMP tasered, then subdued Mr. Dziekanski, was trained in the use of a defibrillator, and might have been able to help revive him.
Paul Levy, the vice-president of operations with the Vancouver Airport Authority, confirmed that defibrillators are available in the international customs hall and airport information desks. "A number of people around the airport are trained in First Aid and the use of the automatic external defibrillator," he said.
However, he said, Richmond, B.C., ambulance crews were called immediately following the incident. When they arrived, a computer on the defibrillator advised them that it was not needed, he said. It remains unclear how many minutes it took for the ambulance to arrive, or whether Mr. Dziekanski was still alive when they did.
A crew of airport firefighters trained in First Aid was not called to respond, even though their response time would have come much faster, because airport protocol is to call municipal first responders for medical emergencies, Mr. Levy said.
He declined to comment on Mr. Vrba's allegations, citing privacy laws.
National Post
news:a060e9c8-b914-4fc0-8062-5f6f14873617@a39g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
X wrote:
>> That was the lamest struggle I have ever seen. The police didn't get
>> their
>> clothing torn or their hair messed up.
>> > One problem there.... her wasn't unconscious. As the guy filming it
>> > says
>> > on
>> > the video, he was still struggling.-
> which is a normal reaction.
Older urls, not put on the blog before:
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iy7-Xb0yJP12SKSRdlAnjvO5DQmg
Revulsion, anger, sadness greet video of man's death after Taser hits - Nov. 15
http://www.zarc.com/english/other_sprays/reports/excited_delirium.html
Excited Delirium": A Two-Fold Problem
Police Chief June 1996
By Lieutenant Alan W. Benner, Ph.D., Department Psychologist, San Francisco Police Department and S. Marshall Isaacs, M.D., San Francisco Department of Health, Paramedic Division, San Francisco, California
Problem 1: "Excited delirium" is not a recognized medical or psychiatric condition. However, with various media citing this descriptive phrase as a cause of death, street police officers find themselves held to a higher level of diagnostic acuity and standard of care than can be expected within their scope of responsibility, equipment and training.
Problem 2: Well-meaning police departments are unintentionally creating a potentially libelous situation by recognizing "excited delirium" as a medical condition with "symptoms" that include commonly encountered street behaviors, and mandating that the condition be treated as a medical emergency.
More about excited delirium and drug users being taZered on the url above
This is a warning that Taser International intends to SUE anyone who claims the taZering caused the death of Robert Dziekanski, as he is alive AFTER the tasering.
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