By IANS,
Toronto : The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada’s central police force, has been indicted for the death of a newly arrived immigrant at Vancouver airport.
Robert Dziekanski, who had just landed as a new immigrant from Poland, was killed inside the airport after he got agitated for failing to find his mother two years ago.
Having no knowledge of English, the Polish man failed to communicate with anybody inside the airport and failed to get out of the airport.
He remained stuck inside the airport for many hours even as his mother left after waiting for him.
As the Polish man grew agitated, police were called in to subdue him. Police used taser (stun gun) five times to subdue him as the man tried to throw things around.
But the electric shock proved too much for the exhausted immigrant, and he died within minutes.
The Canadian authorities have not charged any of the four policemen despite public outrage and pressure from the Polish government.
Now, in a damning report on the police conduct released Tuesday, the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP said the policemen used taser too quickly and too much.
In his findings and recommendations, Paul Kennedy, chair of the commission, slammed the policemen and the RCMP for its own investigations into the tragedy.
Kennedy said police violated its own guidelines in using force against the new immigrant.
Casting doubts over the integrity of the police force, the report said the RCMP’s own probe into the matter failed to give accurate information to the public.
Kennedy said the RCMP officers didn’t try to calm down the agitated immigrant. They also didn’t take appropriate steps to deal with the man who had travelled from Poland and was exhausted and confused.
The investigator said police men didn’t try to de-escalate the situation by warning him. Too much force was used too early against the immigrant, the report said.
Surprisingly, all politicians in Canada have remained quiet about the case.