9 minutes, disturbing, deadly
Video footage has been released in Canada showing the last moments of an immigrant who died after being stunned with a Taser by police.
Mr Dziekanski, a construction worker, was emigrating to Canada to join his mother, who lived in the western province of British Columbia.
Mr Dziekanski, who had not flown before, had boarded a plane a day earlier in Germany, and arranged to meet his mother at the baggage carousel in the international terminal.
Neither of them knew the baggage carousel was inside a secure area, with no view of the public arrivals hall area, except for a short distance through sliding glass doors, the family’s lawyer, Mr Kosteckyj said.
No airport, customs or security employees at the airport apparently tried to help either of them, he added.
You have to wonder about a “safe” device that kills dozens of people every year. Hell of a definition of “safe”.
Columbia, not Colombia, dude…they are different places, though both are dope paradises….
I think the question is whether it was the stun gun that killed him or the officer kneeling on the man’s neck. Do they teach that at police academies?
No one is saying tasers are ‘safe’, they’re just a less lethal alternative to firearms. Unfortunately, some people/agencies think they’re jreally a convenient, less messy alternative to wrestling someone to the ground and cuffing them..
Of course, some people drop dead just from being chased by police, or taken down, or cuffed. There’s no “safe” way to restrain someone who doesn’t want to be restrained.
Wish I could find the citation again, but I distinctly remember reading an article saying that the Taser company’s only safety test was performed on pigs, which they’ve since been passing off as “safe for humans”, on the presumption that pigs and humans react the same way to the taser jolt.
Due diligence is something other people do…
Dear Mr. Innocent Until Proven Guilty
As per my training and departmental policy, someone who I perceive as a threat to others or myself, can be restrained with handcuffs until a time as he is no longer a threat or transferred to a detention facility. Prior to applying handcuffs, you must acknowledge this fact and be a semi-willing party. If not, please choose from the options below:
1. Get shot in the leg by a firearm in close range risking dislodgement of bone and blood.
2. Get gang tackled by myself and other police officers representing a total of a half ton of body mass on your arthritic knee
3. Brief electronic shock administered by a Taser device allowing you to ask for your mommy while falling to the floor.
Thank you for your uncooperation.
Watch the video it is 4 LAZY police officers NOT doing their job.BTW their job is to serve and protect…….us.
Jeebus, here we go again. Poor wittle cwiminals.
Cops should just go back to smashing these idiots across the skull with billy clubs (or shooting them). Nobody is outraged when these methods result in ingury or death.
I wonder how many dirtbags have had their lives saved by being Tased instead of shot? We will never know because theses stories are not printed by liberal San Francisco based blogs.
I can guarantee a later “incident” involving a Louisville slugger at some point if I’m ever tasered.
What did police do Before tazers? They probably would have talked to him. There are ways to communicate without language. If he was threatening they would have drawn their guns. International sign to shut up and lay down. In my opinion the tazer guns and pepper spray have made police lazy. This is not a quick turn over business. You don’t get a bonus for the quantity of arrests made in a day.
I like the ones,
Where they Taser a 84 year old lady.
Where they taser a Diabetic, in BED, going into shock.
I think thats what was reported.
Read the whole article. It says that the guy was agitated and throwing things around. No wonder the cops used a taser on him.
#12 By that rationale, most mentally disabled people I’ve known would be tasered daily. Of course, according to the health department, such behavior would constitute torture and get you rightfully thrown in jail for 20 years.
In other words, behavior that would be considered torture if done by a health professional to curb anti-social behavior is still torture if done by a ‘peace officer’. And don’t give me that crap about Police work being so dangerous; if a dangerous job gave one the right to engage in violence, then fleet fisherman would have a license to kill! It’s protect and serve, not laze and taze.
From what I’ve been seeing, its been the officer’s full body weight (sometimes, multi-officers) on the back of the prostrate alleged perpetrator that causes death by asphyxiation. “Can’t breath? Not our problem, scumbag.”
“We successfully brought the perp under control…and then, we killed him. Sorry, too bad. To Serve & Protect triumphs again!” Not much of a defense there, officers.
“Read the whole article. It says that the guy was agitated and throwing things around. No wonder the cops used a taser on him.”
Wow! Fear and mortal danger to the public and the officers there what with “things” being thrown around.
Please, if a group of officers can’t control one guy, what good are they? Heck, call the airport janitor in with a can of Mace and he could be more effective as a whole group of police, apparently.
The question is, why did they tase him if he’d calmed down, and after only trying to talk for 24 seconds?
This is something I’ve been reading about more frequently in the news, as well as seeing first hand: police officers quickly becoming very angry and aggressive towards an individual for ‘not obeying commands’, when it is patently obvious that the person _does_not_speak_english_, and has no idea whether the officer is saying ‘put your hands up!’, ‘Hi, my name is officer Smith, how can I help?’, or ‘You have won the lottery!’. It never seems to occur to them that the _obvious_lack_of_english_comprehension_ might have something to do with them ‘not obeying commands’.
In the case I saw, the senior cop who finally arrived, cursed the arresting officer out at great length for violently body slamming and cuffing an ‘agitated man’ who was agitated about not being able to find the hospital a relative had been taken to for a medical emergency, and was trying to get the officer’s help to find it, and threatening to arrest someone who offered to translate right before he turned and slammed the other guy to the ground.
Canada is slowly becoming like the USA, almost; but not yet, they still have to fill the “Suspect attempted to break the officer’s bataan by headbutting it 52 times,” or “Suspect laid on the floor and attemped to neck butt the officer’s kneecap” in the police reports.
“You have to wonder about a “safe” device that kills dozens of people every year. Hell of a definition of “safe”.”
Cars are considered safe and kill thousands every year. What Tasers provide is a less-than-lethal step before resorting to using a gun. Obviously, though, like any new device it has the potential to be abused.
A cop’s job is to put our body, and if needed your life, on the life. If you aren’t willing to take a pop in the jaw to calm a person down then you are in the wrong line of work. If 4 cops can’t stop one guy, who was calming down, then cops are becoming pretty big pussies.
Curious: if it turns out that the stun gun was irrelevant and that the man died from being man-handled (ie: knee on neck artery), would or should all future physical interaction be banned in the same way some folks might wish to ban the Taser?
RBG
Of course, tasers are safe. Just look at how many reporters have been shocked to prove it! In fact, they are so safe, I think every police officer should be required to receive a shock prior to being issued one. The training should also include four or five burly cops wrestling the shocked cop for a minute or two.
Once again, the taser was used as an arrest tool. And not a very good one if it still takes four cops to restrain the subject!
#21 I used to work with the police department in our town. If you were issued a taser, you got shocked. Same thing if they were issued mace spray.
#18,
Cars are considered safe and kill thousands every year. What Tasers provide is a less-than-lethal step before resorting to using a gun.
Bad analogy. Cars are designed to transport people and material. They are not designed to injure people and safeguards are continually being designed to make them even less injurious. Tazers are designed to deliver a high dose of electrical current causing great pain to the recipient.
wow, that was truly sad.
UBER PWNED!!!
Justice is served, yet again, by those who protect us… from ourselves 😉
#22 Same thing here in NC, if you carry a taser, you get tased first. Same thing with pepper spray.
23: “Tazers are designed to deliver a high dose of electrical current causing great pain to the recipient.”
Wrong. Tasers deliver a high voltage/ charge, but very little current. If it were a high current charge it delivered, it would kill the young and healthy as well. And, furthermore, Tasers aren’t designed to work primarily on pain receptors, but to cause muscle spasm by uncontrolled discharge of electricity into the body. Pain is simply the secondary result of your muscles all clenching at once. Which is why a Taser is more effective than pepper spray or other less than lethal devices that can be affected and made less effective by the target having a built-up resistance or higher pain tolerance.
As I said, Tasers can be an effective tool when properly applied. Personally, I’d rather get Tased than shot with a beanbag, and I’m still functional after getting hit with Freeze (a police-grace spray with Oleoresin Capsacin and CS) and breathing in several lungfulls of burning CS. But at the same time, this is a relatively new tool for police, and as such is more likely to be used in inappropriate situations until better SOPs on the use of force are made integrating the technology.
Cops don’t really want to get involved with the public beyond incapacitating a potential problem, whether it’s through the use of mace, pepper spray, batons, tazers or bullets, – it is now the accepted form of dealing with any situation. Since 9/11 the police have carte blanche to use deadly force with essentially no repercussions all under the guise of stifling the invisible threat of terrorism. Previously, the police reserved this treatment for minorities since they had no voice that would stir public outrage. Now that they feel free to do it to anyone knowing the judicial branch will generally back their actions; we are in serious f*cking trouble.
I think for those of you who believe tasers should not be used or carried never have had someone in yoru family attacked or rapped. Taser device take control of your bodys muscles they do not hurt it just scares people and makes them yell. This gentleman above was throwing tables, he slammed a computer monitor on teh floor smashed into the glass with a table. He could have hurt himself or others therfore he was tased. The guy had never flown before as it was his first time. Maybe he took drugs to be calm on the flight or mixed a drug with Alcohol we will know when the reports come out. Would you rather police use billy clubs again and just hit people? Should officers get hurt trying to handle these guys? they are just doing there job, and that is to protect us not teh criminal.
Joe
We Got Security, Inc
Had there been no amateur video, we would have heard from Canadian government by now that Mr. Dziekanski was a strong sympathizer of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and was planning a large-scale terrorist attack on either Canada or the US. Yeah!
Yeah, I think I’d rather be tasered. Especially after reading the post by the cop above. Lol.