Canada ordered a review into the use of Tasers after graphic
video footage emerged showing police using the stun guns to shoot
an unarmed Polish immigrant who then collapsed and died.
The video - broadcast repeatedly on Canadian and US television
networks - showed Robert Dziekanski shrieking in agony after he was
hit by 50,000-volt blasts at Vancouver International Airport a
month ago.
"I've asked for a review relating to the use of Tasers...this is a
tragic and grievous incident. We want to find out answers that can
prevent these things from happening in the future," Public Security
Minister Stockwell Day told Parliament.
The video cast severe doubt on the official Royal Canadian Mounted
Police account of the incident, which said officers fired Taser
shots at Dziekanski after he became abusive.
The video, taken by a bystander at the airport, initially shows a
sweating and upset Dziekanski throwing a small table at a window in
the luggage retrieval section and shouting at airport staff.
By the time a team of four police officers arrives, he has
calmed down and is standing still.
Police then fired at least two shots from Taser stun guns at the
40-year-old man, who collapsed to the ground howling in pain.
At least three policemen could then be seen kneeling on
Dziekanski, who died shortly afterward.
Legislator Penny Priddy from the opposition New Democratic Party
said the screams of a dying man echo throughout the country and
said Canadians wanted answers before more lives were lost.
"Is it standard operating procedure for the RCMP to use Tasers when
there is no obvious physical threat?" she asked Day in
Parliament.
Poland's ambassador to Canada said the video had deeply shocked him
and said Warsaw wanted to learn all it could about an investigation
the Mounties have launched into the case.
"The reaction of the RCMP officers was unsuitable to the situation.
What I've seen was that Mr. Dziekanski (was) a person who was
agitated, frustrated, I think terrified, but not aggressive. He was
not making a gesture that he intended to fight anybody," Piotr
Ogrodzinski said.
"He didn't know what to to do. In fact, he was in search (of) help.
That is why it is a really very sad and deeply moving film to
watch."
Dziekanski flew to Canada to live with his mother in the western
Canadian city of Kamloops, British Columbia.
She had told him to wait for her at the luggage belt.
But this meant he never passed through the customs section to
enter the main part of Vancouver's airport, where she was
waiting.
The left-leaning New Democratic Party said it was unhappy the
Mounties were investigating the conduct of their own members.
"There is a litany of cases in which serious errors have been made
when the police investigate themselves," said spokesman Ian
Capstick.
Earlier this year the Mounties in British Columbia were heavily
criticized for their account of how a police officer shot and
killed a young man who had been arrested in 2005 for holding an
open can of beer at a sports game.
Dale Carr, an RCMP spokesman in Vancouver, said the officers
involved in the Dziekanski case would testify under oath at a
coroner's inquest expected some time next year.
