Tasers Are Lethal Force

I just watched the video of a man put to death by RCMP tasers. We'll have to wait to learn more about the victim, Robert Dziekanski, and why he was so plainly disturbed. I'm not sure that even really matters.

Certain facts are apparent from the video. Dziekanski was on a bit of a rampage. He tossed things around and destroyed at least one computer. He was yelling and acting like a lunatic. There was a need to subdue and restrain the man.

Also apparent was that Dziekanski didn't actually attack anyone. He could have thrown furniture and equipment at bystanders or at the security and police officers who eventually arrived, but he didn't. Nor did he swing at them or kick them. He had no knife, no gun.

Early on in the tape one bystander, a middle-aged, soccer-mom type went up to him and tried to calm him down. She didn't see Dziekanski as a mortal threat to herself and kept trying to calm him for several minutes before she slowly walked away as security arrived.

Twice on the tape you can hear someone saying that a Cathay Pacific flight was due to arrive at that gate with 300-passengers in five minutes.

Then the RCMP moved in, four officers in all. Dziekanski was up against a counter and the four were able to surround him. He seemed to let them do that without attacking them.

Then the tasers were used. On the tape you can clearly hear three, and possibly four, taser shots. What makes no sense to me is that Dziekanski appeared to go down with the first shot. Why did he have to be hit again and again?

Eventually the officers are atop him and then he stops moving. And that's it.

I think this incident should give us cause to revisit the use of lethal force by our police officers. The taser, as has been shown all too often, is not as non-lethal as sometimes claimed. It should be used as a substitute for a gun, not as an alternative to pepper spray. In other words, tasers should only be used in circumstances where an officer would be justified in shooting his firearm.

There was nothing in Dziekanski's behaviour that would have justified shooting him. I also don't see why four fit RCMP officers couldn't have taken him down. At the time they tased him, the guy didn't have a weapon. Why then did they need to use their weapons on him and why three or four times?

I wonder if tasers were used because they didn't want to fill the arrival gate with pepper spray with passengers due to arrive in a few minutes?

This incident is definitely going to bring the RCMP in British Columbia under close scrutiny and maybe that's about time. Months ago we were dealing with the death of a young man, Ian Bush, who died from a bullet fired into the back of his head while in RCMP custody. That one, too, doesn't sit well with a lot of us out here.