Filed under: Canada, Freedom, Politics — Pieter Dorsman on November 16, 2007 @ 6:34 pm CET
Needless to say, this story is now generating disgust around the world, the intensity of some of the reactions (and comments on this site) is quite remarkable. At higher levels reactions have been swift too with a debate in Canadian parliament yesterday:
“This is a tragic and grievous incident,” Mr. Day told the House of Commons. “We want to find out answers that can prevent these things from happening in the future.”
But Day, the federal Public Security Minister, refused to commit to a public inquiry though at this point. Given that the victim, Robert Dziekanski, was a Polish immigrant, Warzaw has entered the fray too:
Poland’s ambassador to Canada said Thursday the conduct of the four Mounties who tasered a Polish immigrant was out of line and called for immediate measures to prevent anyone else from suffering the same fate.
Other worthwhile links for more on this case are the Canadian blog The Politic which offers some terse commentary here and British Columbia’s key webzine The Tyee.
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1 Tully
November 16, 2007 @ 11:17 pm CETMr. Day sounds most reasonable. Unlike most of the commenters around the blogosphere.
As I said in the original thread, the problem with people displaying unusual agitation combined with irrational behavior (and he most certainly was) like that is they have a strongly increased incidence of dying under restraint no matter how they’re subdued, or how they’re restrained. The other problem is that they don’t (can’t) just calm down–they can go on like that for hours.
In the ’70s they blamed the billy clubs, in the ’80s they blamed the CS, in the ’90s they blamed the positioning and dogpiling, and now they blame the Taser. Yet the rates of such sudden deaths in like situations haven’t really changed.
The medical approach to such cases in psych wards is tranquilizer injections, but police are not allowed to use tranquilizer guns.
2 Bob C
November 17, 2007 @ 8:36 pm CETTully; Good points and count me among those not yet convinced of police misconduct by 5 minutes of video. What had this guy been doing for the 30 minutes prior to what we saw? What had been communicated to the police before their arrival? Also, in one newspaper article it was said that he grabbed a stapler just seconds before getting tasered. Were the cops fearful of him throwing it at them? I sure wouldn’t want one being winged off the side of my head.
We simply don’t know enough at this point to convict or exonerate anyone. The police deserve the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise, and 5 minutes of tape doesn’t do it.
3 two cents
November 18, 2007 @ 1:33 pm CETThere are more taser stories on internet, in particular on youtube. The weapon suppose to be used instead guns. However, because of the perception that tasers are non-lethal they are used much more often in a punitive way and in the situations when guns would not be accepted under any circumstances. In defense (sic!) of taser, various police sources say about dozens of thousands even hundreds of thousands uses per year. I just can’t believe, there would be so many uses of guns, if police had no tasers. Police had tasered petite women, persons 80+ years old, in diabetic shock, sleeping in his own house, on a wheelchair, etc. At Vancouver airport police own rules were not followed: use only when active resistance, no multiple shocks, put person in a position that allows him to breathe. Now the weapon moves to the consumer market; ping model (for ladies, I guess) delivers electric shock six times longer then one used at the Vancouver airport. Teaser use for conflict resolutions (I am being sarcastic here) will greatly increase. On youtube again, there are already videos of clearly untrained people applying taser to themselves and other. Just wait until it gets into hands of criminals. Even assuming that tasers are non-lethal, they make our life less civilized even dehumanized. The weapon’s availability should be limited, and its use allowed exclusively, I repeat exclusively, as gun replacement and under very strict rules.