[LINK] Two new developments in the Dziekański taser incident

[rfmcdonald]

I've been following what Wikipedia calls the Robert Dziekański Taser incident for some time. In 2007, the forty-year-old Polish immigrant Dziekański was tasered to death in Vancouver International Airport when he encountered four officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, people who not only didn't follow protocols but appear to have engaged in a coverup, including the attempted suppression of video of their altercation. Subsequent posts I made, in 2009 and 2010 and 2011, touched upon the discrediting of the police.

One news item in the middle of March highlighted the upcoming trial of one of these officers for perjury.

A B.C. Supreme court justice has denied Const. Kwesi Millington's application to dismiss a perjury charge alleging he lied about the death of Robert Dziekanski to the Braidwood Inquiry.

The Braidwood Inquiry was convened to investigate how Dziekanski died after being stunned several times by RCMP Tasers in the arrivals lounge of Vancouver International Airport in 2007.

[. . .]

His lawyer, Ravi Hira, had argued one of the charges should be stayed. The charge in question alleges Millington lied at the inquiry when he said he never discussed the incident with his partners before giving his statement to investigators.

Hira told the court the issue of collusion had already been rejected by a judge last year when he acquitted Millington's partner, Bill Bentley, on a similar allegation.

Hira argued that prosecuting Millington for collusion would essentially amount to a retrial of a charge that had already been dismissed.

But special prosecutor Eric Gottardi told the court the two officers are not the same accused, and the evidence against each is significantly different.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice William Ehrcke agreed and dismissed Millington's application. The trial has been adjourned to Oct. 31.

Just a couple of days ago, the officers' lawyers have made allegations of witness tampering on the part of the RCMP as it gatherrs evidence.

An RCMP constable and a former Mountie charged with perjury for their testimony at the Braidwood inquiry have lodged complaints with B.C.'s civilian police watchdog.

The complaints by Const. Gerry Rundel and retired corporal Monty Robinson mark the first time any of the officers involved in Robert Dziekanski's death in 2007 have attempted to defend themselves outside of the grindingly slow prosecutions against them.

[. . .]

Documents showed that last September Vancouver police officers opened an investigation into a claim that all four Mounties involved in the Taser-related death of Dziekanski met secretly before testifying at the inquiry into what happened.

Const. Gerry Rundel is one of four RCMP officers accused of lying during the testimony given during the public inquiry into Robert Dziekanski's death. (CBC)

At the Braidwood inquiry, which was convened to investigate how Dziekanski died after being stunned with a police Taser several times, the officers all testified they had not discussed the incident with each other.

Last August. Janice Norgard told police and the special prosecutor the four had met at her house in Richmond, B.C., in January or February 2009.

Norgard came forward after reading that one of the officers, Const. Bill Bentley, had been acquitted of perjury.

She alleged the 2009 meeting had been arranged by her ex-common-law partner, Brian Dietrich, who is Bentley's cousin.

But in Robinson's complaint to the OPCC, the former Mountie alleges the Vancouver police detectives who looked into Norgard's claim made multiple mistakes.

"The rules of evidence and the collection of evidence have been ignored in this case," Robinson wrote in the complaint obtained by CBC News.

Canada has nothing to be proud of with any bit of this sad affair.