The RCMP needs to stop enforcing the laws and reconsider, based on new evidence, if the people of Canada really deserve the protection provided by the RCMP.

An election ploy with no substance and nothing more.
Wally Offal is running scared and this will not happen.
Even if charges are "revisited" they will go nowhere.
Oppal is not kidding anyone and I am suprised that he actually thinks we are stupid enough to believe this crap!

Have a spouse immigrating thru the Vancouver airport (whenever the immigration dept approves her). A little nervous about her arrival with what happened to Dzeikanski in the same airport.

My opinion may be wrong. It has been formulated based on the information which I have been exposed to from various news media resources.
Based on what I have observed, there were some very poor decisions made by the said RCMP officers involved in this incident, and these decisions may have been supported directly or indirectly by the RCMP organization itself. If this is not correct then I and many others have been very badly misled.
I believe that the enforcement agency called the RCMP needs to stop and reconsider how they enforce the laws of the land. I believe that we, as Canadians, really do deserve better support and protection than what we now receive from our law enforcement agency.
I have lost a lot of trust in our police force, I know we do not see very many of the good things that they do but I do believe that when you see things that are as bad as this incident, you just know that this happens more often than we are made aware of.
It is very easy to lie and to deflect blame to others in bad situations. It is very hard, especially when it comes to bad situations, to be truthful and accept the consequences of the decisions that we make, but be truthful we must.

I was not going to respond to this article at all because a lot has already been said, but I feel I have to say that if we do not like what we see then we need to change what we see.
This is my small way of trying to make change.

Seems there is ample resonsibility for the unfortunate death of Mr.Dziekanski. to be born by the Police Tazer, the over zealous actions by the officers, and the airport authority. Little if any responsibility is placed on Dziekanski himself, who if he acted in a lawful manner, would still be alive today. His actions were not rational, and he posed a safety threat to innocent persons nearby. If someone had been injured or worse, what would the public have to say about the police inaction! Looks like the cops can't win no matter what they do. This incident is just one of those times when everyone included in this scenario failed badly, including Dziekanski. Each party can learn from this sad incident, hopefully to correct training etc. that will help prevent this from happening again. If Dziekanski had shown respect to property, respect to police, and controlled his outrage, this would never have happened

Imorge.
Totally agree with your post, especially the last three lines.
I feel all this could have been avoided if Mr.Dziekanski had carried a simple English phrasebook. Instead of his outrage he could have at least asked someone for help in the 9 hours he was waiting in the airport. Most travellers going to any country where they do not speak the language carry a phrasebook.
Just two words of English, "Help me" may have saved his life.

blame the victim?

I agree Imorge...to a point, but is it fair to assume that Dziekanski was in a normal and rational state of mind and had any control over his actions?
It is obviously the guy was out of control, but under the circumstances,I doubt that was his own fault.
People do irrational things under pressure, but that does not mean they deserve to be zapped 5 times with a tazer and end up dead.
The one ingredient missing here was compassion and any attempt to take the time to properly assess the situation by the police.
I would like to think our cops are smarter than that!

Exactly.

He was a person in distress, needing assistance from the police.

The police, in this scenario, should have acted as rescuers and not as executioners.

Instead, the police took a minor situation and escalated it into a major crimes situation.

AND:

I am extremely bothered by the amount of perjury being committed by members testifying under oath. This is the reason that innocent people went to jail in the first place.

Has nothing changed ??

"If someone had been injured or worse"

Someone was worse than injured. Someone was killed and it was not Dziekanski who did the killing.

This was an exceptional case of a person who could not speak English have one thing after another go wrong in the processing of him from the plane to the unsecure side of the airport where his mother was waiting for him. That part of his travel was not under his control. It took some 100 hours to go through that process without a single person at the airport being able to figure out how to get him from point A to point B.

To the best of our knowledge, he did not start off being the way he was depicted in the video. That is the way he ended up due to complete and utter incompetence of people at an international airport.

If the RCMP were debriefed by anyone at the airport, they were obviosuly not debriefed by anyone who was trained on how to assess and reduce the level of agitation that was displayed. In addtion, no matter how they were debriefed, the wrong gorup of RCMP officers were dispatched since they were also not assess the situation themselves and caslm Dziekanski down from the state he was in. If they had any such training, it was under conditions were one is able to communicate normally with an individual.

So, if you fit the mold, you pass through YVR safely. If not, you takes your chances.

"I feel all this could have been avoided if Mr.Dziekanski had carried a simple English phrasebook"

Is there any special knowledge you have that tells you that he was able to read?

should be ten hours, not one hundred ....

BTW, had he been in need of walking assistance such as being wheeled through with a wheelchair, he would be alive today. Staff do attend to individuals who need such assistance.

Interesting, isn't it? They do know how to get someone from A to B. But you have to request a wheelchair when you purchase the ticket and they will escort you through all the hurdles along the way right up to the point where you take the cab or meet the person who is there to greet you. In addition, you get priority service going through those line-ups.

"took some 100 hours" gus?
No wonder the poor man was agitated!!
I repeat, maybe an English phrasebook ...

"Just two words of English, "Help me" may have saved his life"

Dziekanski - help me (in broken english)

police - put down the stapler.

Dziekanski - help me (in broken english)

police - first put down the stapler and we'll help you

Dziekanski - help me (in broken english)

police - first put down the stapler and we'll help you, otherwise we will have to use the tazer.

Dziekanski - help me (in broken english)

police - you have to do what we ask, put down the stapler or we shoot the tazer.

Dziekanski - help me (in broken english)

police - last warning, put down the stapler

Dziekanski - help me (in broken english)

police - Zap ......

So ... the words "help me" would have been really helpful. What they actually would have done is given the false impression that this guy knew how to speak english

You fail "conflict resolution 101". One of the fist things one has to do is establish communication with the individual.

You are right gus. I have no special knowledge at all that he could read. One just assumes ...

BTW you must be clairvoyant. You are answering my posts just minutes before I even post them. :) lol.

Observer .. I only said that about reading because I thought that I had read he came from a small village. People normally do not want to talk about such things. By people, I mean his mother who can provide some background as to his level of abilities.

Boston Logan International airport has an interpreter program and has had it since 1974. That's over 30 years ago!!!

In any trade it is called "best practices". YVR does not seem to have "best practices" while Logan looks like it does.

http://www.massport.com/logan/airpo_inter.html

The Interpreters operate primarily at the Federal Inspection Area at the Volpe International Terminal E. They provide informational assistance to International visitors arriving on a daily basis that clear through U.S. Immigration, U.S. Customs, and U.S. Agriculture services. They meet, greet and assist passengers in the Immigration Hall. We will assist our customers in the proper completion of the required federal forms.

Once passengers have filtered down into the Customs area, Interpreters provide directional assistance relative to baggage carousel assignments, inter-airline baggage connections, airline services, ground transportation information and other airport service requests.

The Interpreter Program is often called on for assistance by the State Police, commercial and charter airlines and all other airport tenants. On many occasions, the Interpreters provide translation/interpretations assistance for dignitary reception services.

The Interpreters are stationed in Terminal E but provide services throughout all terminals. The hours of operation are 12:00 noon to 10:00 pm.

The following 20 foreign languages are currently available:

Arabic, Cantonese, Creole, Czech, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

Here is the report that was prepared after the Dziekanski incident at YVR

http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/media/facts-faits/067-eng.html

Recommendation: The CBSA, along with other partners such as the Vancouver Airport Authority, will review procedures on services provided for international travellers and those waiting to meet them.

Recommendation: The CBSA will update its list of employees who can speak languages other than English and French. The CBSA will also review its interpreter services to make sure that the services are provided as quickly as possible.

Recommendation: More cameras will be installed to provide an expanded coverage of the CBSA's area at Vancouver International Airport.

Recommendation: The Agency will explore options to have more patrols and security checks within the CBSA's area.

Recommendation: The CBSA will review its procedure to ensure that all persons referred for further examinations report to the secondary examination areas within a reasonable amount of time.

That gives us some idea of where "best practices" were not followed.

The system, from the time that Dziekanski got on board the flight in Poland, where passengers should be asked whether they speak the language of the destination country, to the time of the police being called, totally failed this man.

There is absoloutely nothing that says that people, when travelling, must be able to take care of themselves.

Travellers are, in fact, under the control of the air carriers and the departure and arrivals airport personnel and have to rely on them to process them through when they do not know the system or cannot communicate whether they are too young to do so (children can fly and are escorted by personnel) physically or mentally challenged to do so, or whatever.

Some people have to do a 180 degree flip in the point of view from the protecting "me" orientation to the protecting the "customer" orientation.

When one does that, then one can see that the ROOT cause of this is lack of customer service, a service one pays for when paying the fare and the various add ons for airport cahrges, Border services charges, and airport security charges. Most people do not even look at it that way. They simply look at it as a user fee, as another form of direct tax. When it comes to this, it becomes a fee for service and the service was clearly not there.

That is indeed a great program at Boston Logan Gus.
Correct me if I am wrong, but all the languages you mention probably have their own airline flying directly into Logan so interpreters know that the majority of Flight XYZ's passengers will be speaking that language and would need assistance.
Whereas most flights into Vancouver have not come directly from the passenger's country of origin on their own airline but have transferred in say, Toronto or Europe. So would it not be difficult to know who speaks what on an Air Canada flying in and have 20 interpreters on standby just in case?
Anyway back to Mr. Dziekanski. An interesting article on the Vancouver Sun site this morning ...

Well maybe what the training should involve it seems is an extra month spent on learning basic words in different languages. "Help me." for instance.

Some things to think about: Not saying he had a mental illness but what I'm thinking is there was something not right and he needed medical attention. Why couldn't they sit and even draw pictures on paper for him if needed to. Food and a glass of water, he could've wrote his mothers name.
It's not that hard to communicate with people. If these officers find it so hard to communicate they should fess up to their lies and quit.

"Persons exhibiting symptoms of mental illness have been found to be suffering from malnutrition. When nutritional therapy was applied, there was a noticeable improvement and in some cases a complete restoration of mental health."
Taken from my esthetics book....a course that is the same length as RCMP training.
Scary!!!

I just read where a RCMP type got busted for a little grass in his wallet and was thrown out of the force. Now if he had murdered someone or had been drinking, hit and run with death he would still be in. Cops have quite a system.

I agree with you observer. That is why I made the point in one of my posts above that the way it should be handled is for all passengers to fill out a form. They typically fill out forms for customs and even immigration.

First question then becomes, did he fill out a customs form?? What language was it in? If he did not have one, what happend as he went through customs???? They just let him through? They went through his stuff becasue they could not communicate with him? They may also not have been able to communicate with others at the airport. After all, they all work in their own little silos. Cross communication is not something they are responsible for. They are apparatchik.

What about immigration? Same thing.

We know there was something wrong with his papers and he was in a holding lounge to get the final process over with. They forgot about him. That is why one of the recommendations deals with that aspect of the lack of procedures.

So, the form would screen out those who have ANY kind of difficulty that has not been caught yet that might cause a problem during processing.

For instance, medication. If one gets delayed, does one have medication handy? Does one need food with it?

Language - which ones do you speak?

People waiting? Who are they and what is their contact? Where will they be in the airport?

Hearing impaired? Can you hear?

Do you need a wheelchair?

Is this the first time you are flying? Do you know the process when you get off the plane?

I mean, they accommodate people with special dietary needs on long flights. It is not as if everyone is prodded like cattle. It might look that way, and this case looks like that is what they do. But, if you know the system and advise them beforehand of your special needs, they will accommodate you.

Then we have that North American factor. People here really are not as aware of languages as people in some other parts of the world. After all, we figure everyone speaks english. That is true, but more people speak Chinese. Even they speak English.

We do not generally have an ear for languages. On the tape they keep saying he speaks Russian. So, they could distinguish a slavic language, but could not distinguish one slavic language from another. North Americans, other than those who do speak a second language due to birth rather than through learning it at school, are language challenged.

I approve of what Attorney General Wally Oppal is indicating as the possible next step.

And, in my opinion, it has nothing to do with any party affiliation. This is about proper justice being served in the conduct of the RCMP officers.

The law applies to everyone equally, no exception.

That is my expectation, in spite of that it doesn't always work out that way.

Oppal's just looking for votes for his liberal party. Don't count on it.

Gus - here is a little bit from the article in the Vancouver Sun. (Mr.Dore was a Customer Relations Representative).

"Dore said he made a hand gesture to Dziekanski to proceed to a customs officer at about 3:45 p.m. on Oct. 13, 2007.

He said the customs officer directed Dziekanski to fill out a personal customs declaration form and opened a translation book to the Polish page to assist the man.

Dore recalled the man filled out the form and went through the primary customs inspection, which is the last he saw of Dziekanski".

So Mr.Dziekanski made it to the baggage claim and that is where it appeared he stayed rather than going through to the main terminal, because his mother told him she would meet him at the baggage claim which, incidentally, is forbidden at the International Arrivals terminal.

Anyway Gus it's all been a sad mix-up, but as I said the Vancouver Sun is following this almost daily if you want to keep up to date.

Have enjoyed swapping comments with you.

Observer.

Stonewally has never done other than to swallow the cop-lobby agenda.

He made a career out of concocting a "professionalism" veneer for goofs who take the Police Act oath after 65 days of Mickey Mouse training.

Unfortunately, Lib-Prop is in season with Canwest media holdings in near insolvency.

http://forums.castanet.net/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=18701

haha truth, doubt if you would last in that kind of training.

Heidi1555:"It's not that hard to communicate with people. If these officers find it so hard to communicate they should fess up to their lies and quit."

NO effort was made by the squad of RCMP to communicate. I watched the video dozens of times and as much as possible of the RCMP testimonies on streaming video.

It was a let's-get-it-over-with takedown, in my personal assessment.

imorge;
yah, your pals showed real professionalism in the YVR atrocity.

You resort to ad hominems because telling the truth is too painful to your kind.

As for finding someone who could communicate with Mr Dziekanski, it is on record that a Polish speaking cleaner was on the job at the time. He wasn't aware of the problem.

But cop testimony indicates that their intent was to make an arrest of Dziekanski. Communication was not on their sick minds. The only communication they made that morning was to concoct a lame cover story. We are paying the salaries of 4 frauds who obstructed justice.

Same here observer. Interesting about the sun article.

Yes Diplomat, this whole subject is insane!
Why do we have so many insane people working in power? How did it get to this point?

Actually, they communicated quite well that they didn't value this man.
All a one sided show.
These guys were so AFRAID of the unknown that they didn't want to take the time to be smart. Not everyone out there is out to get the RCMP.
As a mother I can't imagine the pain.

A police officer must know every gun, draw on the run, and hit where it doesn't hurt.

He must be able to whip two men twice his size and half his age without damaging his uniform and without being "brutal".

If you hit him, he's a coward. BUT If he hits you, he's a bully.

Police must make an instant decision which would require months for a lawyer to make.

IT IS SOOOO EASY for us to sit back and be armchair quarterbacks. They react in seconds and we analyze them over a period of months.

I, however, still support the RCMP. Judge the individual, not the organization. Don't blanket the Mounties with this poor image!

Keep up the good work Mr. Policeman!! Don't let the ignorance and bias of the media put you down. And remember... the silent majority supports you and recognizes the good you do.

Post your opinion if you agree.

spooner:

Duh! The monthly Policing Environment Survey, put out by Canada's busiest police service (Toronto) consistently finds that cops there deal with 1 resistant person every 35 days, or 10 per year. A bouncer or cab driver would top that in a couple of days, or less.

Cops don't wade into crime scenes. Vancouver Police admit that it takes 12 minutes for one of their goofs to reach same, and another 5 to 10 minutes of computer checks (CORNET; PROS; CPIC; Firearms) before they grace a crime victim with their presence.

Is is pure stupidity to accept cop fictions of their work environment as fact. A Canadian donut dunkers are deceit in human form.

Here is some of the moral clarity that you crave:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0zgIzqgxFU