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rfmcdonaldThe inquiry into the Robert Dziekański Taser incident, when on the 14th of October, 2007, a disoriented Dziekański at Vancouver International Airport was tasered by four RCMP officers and died minutes later, has just given me another reason to distrust the RCMP's integrity.
The whole inquiry has made the RCMP look very bad, with people providing all manner of testimony--witnesses testifying that Dziekański was disoriented instead of being violent, a video of the event that the RCMP seemingly tried to suppress, police officer after police officer reporting that they managed to forget things--that makes the federal police service look corrupt and self-serving, so much so, in fact, that some British Columbian politicians have proposed to create a provincial police force to replace the RCMP.
It goes without saying that what seems to have happened in the Dziekański case has been replicated in police systems around the world: the manufacturing of evidence or the suppression of evidence, persecution of ethnoracial or sexual minorities, unjustified use of force, a culture of silence directed towards outsiders, and more, all of it has happened again and again. I'm reasonably confident in Toronto's police force, but even it has arrested hundreds of gay men as recently as 1981, and even this decade members of the Toronto Police Service's drug squad were charged with corruption these charges eventually being dismissed because the information necessary to prosecute them and the energies to go after them never materialized.
So. How would you rate the police forces in your neck of the woods: competent, incompetent, honest, corrupt, other, others?
Discuss.
The unexpected disclosure of a key email between senior RCMP officers has raised questions about officers' testimony at the Braidwood inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski, resulting in a delay of the probe in Vancouver until September.
The email between two senior RCMP supervisors suggests that the four Mounties who responded to a call at the airport discussed a plan to use a Taser against the Polish immigrant before they arrived.
The four officers had already stated under oath at the inquiry that they had not discussed using the stun gun before arriving at the airport.
The commission was scheduled to begin hearing closing arguments on Friday morning, but after learning of the email, commissioner Thomas Braidwood announced the inquiry will resume on Sept. 22, so the commission lawyers have time to review the email and conduct an investigation.
"I am obviously appalled," a clearly upset Braidwood said.
The existence of the email was revealed by commission counsel Art Vertlieb as the inquiry resumed Friday. He said he only received the email from federal lawyers on Tuesday.
Vertlieb read from the Nov. 5, 2007, email, titled "Media strategy — release of the YVR video,'" from the RCMP Chief Supt. Dick Bent to assistant commissioner Al McIntyre.
"Finally, spoke to Wayne and he indicated that the members did not articulate that they saw the symptoms of excited delirium, but instead had discussed the response en route and decided that if he did not comply that they would go to CEW."
The whole inquiry has made the RCMP look very bad, with people providing all manner of testimony--witnesses testifying that Dziekański was disoriented instead of being violent, a video of the event that the RCMP seemingly tried to suppress, police officer after police officer reporting that they managed to forget things--that makes the federal police service look corrupt and self-serving, so much so, in fact, that some British Columbian politicians have proposed to create a provincial police force to replace the RCMP.
It goes without saying that what seems to have happened in the Dziekański case has been replicated in police systems around the world: the manufacturing of evidence or the suppression of evidence, persecution of ethnoracial or sexual minorities, unjustified use of force, a culture of silence directed towards outsiders, and more, all of it has happened again and again. I'm reasonably confident in Toronto's police force, but even it has arrested hundreds of gay men as recently as 1981, and even this decade members of the Toronto Police Service's drug squad were charged with corruption these charges eventually being dismissed because the information necessary to prosecute them and the energies to go after them never materialized.
So. How would you rate the police forces in your neck of the woods: competent, incompetent, honest, corrupt, other, others?
Discuss.
