Details of airport Tasering stripped from RCMP report

Jim Bronskill & Sue Bailey
THE CANADIAN PRESS
Monday, May 12, 2008

OTTAWA–The RCMP call it Occurrence No. 2007-34748.

Millions of people around the world know it as the infamous Taser zapping at the Vancouver International Airport last October that sparked so many questions about Robert Dziekanski's death.

The Mounties have stripped any new answers from a heavily censored report on the high-profile stun gun incident, obtained by The Canadian Press and CBC under the Access to Information Act.

Dziekanski died in the early hours of Oct. 14 after the RCMP hit the 40-year-old Polish immigrant with a Taser and pinned him to the airport floor. Police fired the electronic stun gun's metal probes less than 30 seconds after arriving on the scene of a sweaty, agitated Dziekanski, who had earlier tossed a small table and computer monitor in frustration.

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Opposition MPs and human rights groups have criticized the RCMP for suppressing details of Taser cases, including injuries suffered by people stunned and whether they were experiencing a mental health crisis at the time.

The national police force has gone even further with the Dziekanski report, deleting information it routinely releases in other cases.

Though Dziekanski's name is struck from the four-page form, it is readily identifiable as his case, listing basic details well known to those who watched an amateur video of the RCMP arriving on the scene and shooting a Taser X26 at Dziekanski, who quickly crumpled in a heap.

Absent from the report is the name and rank of the officer who fired the Taser, the name of his supervisor, details about the duration of the firing, and the number of times the weapon was used in stun mode – a contact Tasering that's akin to leaning on a hot stove.

Full article here.

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