Man dies after Taser shock by police at Vancouver airport

[china]

An ambulance attendant at the inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski testified Thursday that the man was dead before medical help reached him at Vancouver International Airport.
Allan Maciak told the Braidwood inquiry that it was apparent Dziekanski’s condition was critical the moment he and his partner entered the airport.
“It was obvious his facial features — what you could see of his face — was blue and cyanotic,” he said.
Maciak recalled that as he approached Dziekanski, he saw his body — lying chest down — on the floor with his hands cuffed behind him.
Both Dziekanski’s hands and face were blue.
Dziekanski’s appearance, according to Maciak, indicated he had not been getting oxygen for a period of time. The ambulance attendant testified he knelt down and rolled Dziekanski over and realized he had lost control of his bladder.
“What was your impression about his state of being?” asked Art Vertlieb, the inquiry lawyer.
“Mr. Dziekanski was dead,” responded Maciak.
The Polish immigrant died in 2007 after four Mounties used a Taser to restrain him. He had become agitated after wandering the airport for hours because a series of communications breakdowns kept him in a controlled area.
Dziekanski was immigrating to Canada from Poland and spoke little English.
CPR failed to revive him

Maciak administered CPR on a lifeless Dziekanski for almost half an hour, but failed to revive him.
Thursday’s testimony raises questions about what RCMP supervising officer Cpl. Benjamin Monty Robinson told the inquiry earlier. Robinson insisted he put Dziekanski on his side and continually monitored his pulse and breathing.
The officer’s first aid certification expired five years earlier.
Lawyers for the RCMP dismissed much of Maciak’s testimony by focusing their attention on the testimony of firefighters, who arrived 90 seconds ahead of paramedics.
Maciak also criticized firefighters who arrived on the scene before him for not reacting immediately to Dziekanski’s condition, but conceded it isn't clear whether they could have made a difference saving his life.
An ambulance attendant at the inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski testified Thursday that the man was dead before medical help reached him at Vancouver International Airport.
Allan Maciak told the Braidwood inquiry that it was apparent Dziekanski’s condition was critical the moment he and his partner entered the airport.
“It was obvious his facial features — what you could see of his face — was blue and cyanotic,” he said.
Maciak recalled that as he approached Dziekanski, he saw his body — lying chest down — on the floor with his hands cuffed behind him.
Both Dziekanski’s hands and face were blue.
Dziekanski’s appearance, according to Maciak, indicated he had not been getting oxygen for a period of time. The ambulance attendant testified he knelt down and rolled Dziekanski over and realized he had lost control of his bladder.
“What was your impression about his state of being?” asked Art Vertlieb, the inquiry lawyer.
“Mr. Dziekanski was dead,” responded Maciak.
The Polish immigrant died in 2007 after four Mounties used a Taser to restrain him. He had become agitated after wandering the airport for hours because a series of communications breakdowns kept him in a controlled area.
Dziekanski was immigrating to Canada from Poland and spoke little English.
CPR failed to revive him

Maciak administered CPR on a lifeless Dziekanski for almost half an hour, but failed to revive him.
Thursday’s testimony raises questions about what RCMP supervising officer Cpl. Benjamin Monty Robinson told the inquiry earlier. Robinson insisted he put Dziekanski on his side and continually monitored his pulse and breathing.
The officer’s first aid certification expired five years earlier.
Lawyers for the RCMP dismissed much of Maciak’s testimony by focusing their attention on the testimony of firefighters, who arrived 90 seconds ahead of paramedics.
Maciak also criticized firefighters who arrived on the scene before him for not reacting immediately to Dziekanski’s condition, but conceded it isn't clear whether they could have made a difference saving his life.

 

[JLM]

The airport failed him, the RCMP failed him and he did some very foolish things... Is this really new? I thought it was already well known. Hopefully they will make the changes needed.

Foolish things perhaps under normal circumstances but he was alone in a strange country not cognizant of the language, couldn't find his mother, couldn't communicate, so maybe he thought he'd get a response by waving a stapler- sadly he did. Airport staff should be fired for incompetency and the R.C.M.P. should be charged with manslaughter (and LYING).

 

[china]

Airport staff should be fired for incompetency and the R.C.M.P. should be charged with manslaughter (and LYING).

And this is your duty and my duty and a duty of everyone who loves Canada to DEMAND the above .It is time and not soon enough ,that Canadians begin to get involved in running the country .
I,ve written a second letter to the PM demanding a fair punishment of the four murderers .

 

[tracy]

Foolish things perhaps under normal circumstances but he was alone in a strange country not cognizant of the language, couldn't find his mother, couldn't communicate, so maybe he thought he'd get a response by waving a stapler- sadly he did. Airport staff should be fired for incompetency and the R.C.M.P. should be charged with manslaughter (and LYING).

It was more the chair throwing I was talking about. Anyone who travels abroad should be REALLY calm when dealing with cops, immigration officials, etc. You just don't know what will happen.

 

[JLM]

Yep, you know it and I know it but maybe that stuff isn't too well explained in Poland.

 

[tracy]

Yep, you know it and I know it but maybe that stuff isn't too well explained in Poland.

I actually put it into practice when I accidentally tried to enter Poland illegaly in the late 90s. They had big guns. If the police in Canada carried those around instead of tasers, I wonder if this could have all been avoided.

 

[china]

Lawyer attacks Dziekanski's reputation at inquiry

Lawyer attacks Dziekanski's reputation at inquiry

• RCMP used Taser only once, paramedic told
• Just who are these men?
• English commands 'meaningless' before Dziekanski death: inquiry

• Robert Dziekanski
• Iwona Kowoska
• Police
• Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Jenelle Schneider/Vancouver SunA file photo shows Ravi Hira, front, leaving the Braidwood Inquiry with his client, RCMP Constable Kwesi Millington.

VANCOUVER-- The lawyer for RCMP Constable Kwesi Millington had just made an awful undertaking, exhuming fragments of a dead man's past.
No surprise, then, that Ravi Hira was met with fierce hostility the second he walked from the inquiry room where circumstances surrounding the death of Polish traveller Robert Dziekanski are being examined.
Among the issues raised by Mr. Hira at the inquiry on Monday: A "toxic relationship" that Mr. Dziekanski may or may not have had with a woman, back in Poland. An unspecified juvenile conviction and supposed five-year sentence, back in Poland. A "drinking problem." Nothing based on a presented fact. Relevance to the inquiry looking at circumstances around Mr. Dziekanski's death? None.
"Scum!" shouted one inquiry spectator, outraged at lawyer's muckraking. "Shame!" yelled another, when Mr. Hira left the inquiry room.
Const Millington deployed an RCMP-issued Taser on Mr. Dziekanski five times at Vancouver International Airport, in October 2007. The officer and three other Mounties then wrestled with Mr. Dziekanski on the airport carpet. He lost consciousness and died.
All four RCMP officers have testified before inquiry commissioner Thomas Braidwood, a retired judge. Each of them acknowledged having made erroneous statements to police investigators after Mr. Dziekanski's death. The faulty statements and notes could be interpreted as self-serving justifications for what seems to all the world a rash response to a disturbance complaint.
The four officers made Mr. Dziekanski to be a non-compliant, menacing threat, whereas contemporaneous videotape evidence of the event disproves it.
For many observers, the RCMP's dissembling at the inquiry and the alleged attempt at a "cover-up" are more offensive than their clumsy efforts to subdue an agitated airport traveller. Mistakes are one thing; avoiding responsibility for them is another.
Members of B.C.'s Polish-Canadian community are already calling on the province's attorney general to re-open an investigation into Mr. Dziekanski's death, and they want an independent special prosecutor to handle the matter. "It is time to stop blaming the victim," reads a press release that one of the community members pressed upon inquiry observers on Monday.
But "blaming the victim" was the day's theme. Mr. Hira ensured that, during his cross-examination of a witness from Gwice, Poland, Mr. Dziekanski's hometown.
Iwona Kosowska testified via video link. She had already told the inquiry that Mr. Dziekanski, her neighbour for 20 years, was a decent chap who was interested in geography but nervous about travel. A trip to Canada to see his mother was a big deal for him. Previously, the inquiry heard from passengers who shared flights with Mr. Dziekanski, from Poland to Frankfurt and on to Vancouver. To a person, they testified that he seemed unremarkable.
Speaking calmly and slowly, and almost apologizing in advance, Mr. Hira asked the witness to agree that Mr. Dziekanski had had a drinking problem.
The question was translated. Ms. Kosowska listened and instantly became furious. "You are trying to make [him out to be] a bad person so you can...kill a bad person," she snapped. "I am fed up. I'm not going to answer that question...How could you? You are trying to put words in my mouth that he was a bad person."
Mr. Hira persisted. "He did not have a drinking problem?"
"Of course not," replied the witness.
The lawyer wasn't finished. He asked if Mr. Dziekanski had done some "jail time" back in Poland.
That prompted Walter Kosteckyj, counsel for Mr. Dziekanski's mother. He rose to object. Yes, the deceased had apparently been in an "incident," as a 17-year-old. But so what? He had cleared a criminal record background check before coming to Canada. He had been admitted into the country before his confrontation with the RCMP.
"This is totally inappropriate," barked Mr. Kosteckyj. Some observers in the public gallery broke into applause.
But still Mr. Hira kept at it, mentioning something about "a five year sentence." Before he could offer more, Commissioner Braidwood cut him off. "That is irrelevant," he said. "I've ruled against you."
One more try: Mr. Hira peered into his video monitor and asked Ms. Kosowska if it was not true that back in Poland, Mr. Dziekanski had been in a "toxic relationship" with his girlfriend.
Mr. Kosteckyj objected again. "Are these questions really relevant?" he asked.
They are, Mr. Hira fired back. Their purpose is "to explain some of [Mr. Dziekanski's] behaviour at the airport." Mr. Braidwood didn't buy it; mercifully, the cross-examination ended and a shaken Ms. Kosowska signed off.
Alone outside the inquiry room, Mr. Hira squared off with his hecklers. "Sir," he told one of them, "it was my duty [to ask those questions]. And I will continue to do my duty." With that, he stormed off.
The inquiry continues on Tuesday.

 

[Colpy]

Q. What do you call 500 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

A. A good start.

 

[china]

By Ben Meisner
Monday, March 09, 2009 03:45 AM

Increasingly it is becoming more and more a matter of what do we do, rather than how do we avoid the publicity surrounding the death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver International Airport.
Crown Counsel spokesman, Neil Mackenzie, says the decision not to charge the four officers could be revisited. The Crown had the benefit of the Pritchard video and had the benefit of the investigating officers and decided against charges. The Crown has not favoured well at the inquiry and the Crown in particular is increasingly coming under the microscope as to why they did not lay charges.
The three officers who have testified so far have had to recant their initial stories and to add to that, their stories have had an awful familiar ring to them.
Where does that leave the mother , Zofia Cisowski? She could seek remedy in the civil courts and with the testimony heard so far, she is a good position to recover at least the satisfaction that the officers did wrong while at the same time receiving some compensation for her troubles.
The RCMP have already said their officers acted appropriately and so the matter of internal discipline seems remote. Given that, along with the fact that one of the officers was quickly shepherded out of the province and stationed in Ontario to escape the wrath, suggests where the RCMP brass sat on the matter.
If the RCMP, the feds, or the province do not come forward and say we are sorry and here is some money, the Canadian public (along with world opinion) will not go away on this one.
I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.

 

[VanIsle]

Lawyer attacks Dziekanski's reputation at inquiry

• RCMP used Taser only once, paramedic told
• Just who are these men?
• English commands 'meaningless' before Dziekanski death: inquiry

• Robert Dziekanski
• Iwona Kowoska
• Police
• Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Jenelle Schneider/Vancouver SunA file photo shows Ravi Hira, front, leaving the Braidwood Inquiry with his client, RCMP Constable Kwesi Millington.

VANCOUVER-- The lawyer for RCMP Constable Kwesi Millington had just made an awful undertaking, exhuming fragments of a dead man's past.
No surprise, then, that Ravi Hira was met with fierce hostility the second he walked from the inquiry room where circumstances surrounding the death of Polish traveller Robert Dziekanski are being examined.
Among the issues raised by Mr. Hira at the inquiry on Monday: A "toxic relationship" that Mr. Dziekanski may or may not have had with a woman, back in Poland. An unspecified juvenile conviction and supposed five-year sentence, back in Poland. A "drinking problem." Nothing based on a presented fact. Relevance to the inquiry looking at circumstances around Mr. Dziekanski's death? None.
"Scum!" shouted one inquiry spectator, outraged at lawyer's muckraking. "Shame!" yelled another, when Mr. Hira left the inquiry room.
Const Millington deployed an RCMP-issued Taser on Mr. Dziekanski five times at Vancouver International Airport, in October 2007. The officer and three other Mounties then wrestled with Mr. Dziekanski on the airport carpet. He lost consciousness and died.
All four RCMP officers have testified before inquiry commissioner Thomas Braidwood, a retired judge. Each of them acknowledged having made erroneous statements to police investigators after Mr. Dziekanski's death. The faulty statements and notes could be interpreted as self-serving justifications for what seems to all the world a rash response to a disturbance complaint.
The four officers made Mr. Dziekanski to be a non-compliant, menacing threat, whereas contemporaneous videotape evidence of the event disproves it.
For many observers, the RCMP's dissembling at the inquiry and the alleged attempt at a "cover-up" are more offensive than their clumsy efforts to subdue an agitated airport traveller. Mistakes are one thing; avoiding responsibility for them is another.
Members of B.C.'s Polish-Canadian community are already calling on the province's attorney general to re-open an investigation into Mr. Dziekanski's death, and they want an independent special prosecutor to handle the matter. "It is time to stop blaming the victim," reads a press release that one of the community members pressed upon inquiry observers on Monday.
But "blaming the victim" was the day's theme. Mr. Hira ensured that, during his cross-examination of a witness from Gwice, Poland, Mr. Dziekanski's hometown.
Iwona Kosowska testified via video link. She had already told the inquiry that Mr. Dziekanski, her neighbour for 20 years, was a decent chap who was interested in geography but nervous about travel. A trip to Canada to see his mother was a big deal for him. Previously, the inquiry heard from passengers who shared flights with Mr. Dziekanski, from Poland to Frankfurt and on to Vancouver. To a person, they testified that he seemed unremarkable.
Speaking calmly and slowly, and almost apologizing in advance, Mr. Hira asked the witness to agree that Mr. Dziekanski had had a drinking problem.
The question was translated. Ms. Kosowska listened and instantly became furious. "You are trying to make [him out to be] a bad person so you can...kill a bad person," she snapped. "I am fed up. I'm not going to answer that question...How could you? You are trying to put words in my mouth that he was a bad person."
Mr. Hira persisted. "He did not have a drinking problem?"
"Of course not," replied the witness.
The lawyer wasn't finished. He asked if Mr. Dziekanski had done some "jail time" back in Poland.
That prompted Walter Kosteckyj, counsel for Mr. Dziekanski's mother. He rose to object. Yes, the deceased had apparently been in an "incident," as a 17-year-old. But so what? He had cleared a criminal record background check before coming to Canada. He had been admitted into the country before his confrontation with the RCMP.
"This is totally inappropriate," barked Mr. Kosteckyj. Some observers in the public gallery broke into applause.
But still Mr. Hira kept at it, mentioning something about "a five year sentence." Before he could offer more, Commissioner Braidwood cut him off. "That is irrelevant," he said. "I've ruled against you."
One more try: Mr. Hira peered into his video monitor and asked Ms. Kosowska if it was not true that back in Poland, Mr. Dziekanski had been in a "toxic relationship" with his girlfriend.
Mr. Kosteckyj objected again. "Are these questions really relevant?" he asked.
They are, Mr. Hira fired back. Their purpose is "to explain some of [Mr. Dziekanski's] behaviour at the airport." Mr. Braidwood didn't buy it; mercifully, the cross-examination ended and a shaken Ms. Kosowska signed off.
Alone outside the inquiry room, Mr. Hira squared off with his hecklers. "Sir," he told one of them, "it was my duty [to ask those questions]. And I will continue to do my duty." With that, he stormed off.
The inquiry continues on Tuesday.

You continue to hammer away at the police as your own personal vendetta. You continue to believe that since you have written to the government regarding this case that 1000's of others will jump up and write one too. It won't happen. What happened to Robert Dziekanski was horrible and wrong. How it was handled by everyone is horrible. Far worse than I ever dreamed. I am in no way slamming the poor man but he was familiar with police in his own country and one poster on here even said that in Poland the police carry big guns. That alone should have told him that when in a different country, and already being familiar with police, he should have quietly sat down and waited for help. Had he done that, there would have been no aggressive moves by anyone. There would not have been a reason. I'm not excusing what they did or even how they seem to be responding right now. However, by the same token, neither do I think we should paint the victim like he was totally innocent and had never been in contact with any authority previous to the day he died. Amongst all the good stories, there is this one too:
GLIWICE, Poland - Robert Dziekanski dreamed of coming to B.C. to escape a troubled life in this gritty industrial city, including a tumultuous common-law relationship and a five-year jail term for robbery when he was a teenager, say two of his closest friends.
But Dziekanski was also nervous, likely craving nicotine when he arrived last month at Vancouver International Airport, and desperately anxious to see his beloved mother - all factors that may have contributed to his erratic behaviour during the final stages of the 10-hour wait before his death.
A shuddering, tearful Iwona Kossowscy said she could barely watch the video of her friend screaming, writhing and then dying after being blasted with jolts of electricity by four Canadian policemen.
"If you didn't know him it would be a shock watching that video," Kossowscy said.
Kossowscy lives with her husband Bogdan and daughter Kate, 9, a floor above the decrepit, $77-a-month flat Dziekanski shared with his alcoholic partner, Elzbieta Dubon.
"But we were like a family," she said in their sparse, tiny apartment in the three-floor, century-old building, which looked to be in near ruins.
"How could they do that to him?"
Bogdan Kossowscy vented for almost 20 minutes about his anger and exasperation over the police actions against his friend and neighbour.
"How is it possible? How could those people kill him? What for?"
Iwona Kossowscy said Dziekanski left for Canada largely to be with his mother, to try to start a new life in the construction industry, and to fulfill a lifelong and unfulfilled passion for travelling. His suitcase held only travel books and atlases, not clothes.
But she said another huge reason was to escape a tumultuous 12-year-relationship with Dubon, who refused to speak to CanWest on Friday despite repeated requests.
"She is the source of what was wrong in his life," Iwona Kossowscy said.
Aldona Minorczyk, a local journalist who has investigated Dziekanski's troubled life, concurred.
"His mother told us that he was trying to break free from a toxic relationship," said Minorczyk, who tried twice to interview Dubon but failed, saying the woman was intoxicated.
Minorczyk said Dziekanski had his own drinking problems and had a troubled past, which included a five-year jail sentence for robbery when he was a teenager.
But the journalist said she was touched by his struggle to break free from his misery.
"I was moved with this story, especially because this man was deprived of his chance, his dreams. He landed in his paradise (British Columbia) but he wasn't able to cross the gate of this paradise," she said.
"He was far from being an angel, he made a lot of wrong decisions in his life. But he made up his mind to change his life. He was deprived of his chance to save his own life."
Iwona Kossowscy, who knew Dziekanski when they were both teenagers, confirmed her friend was jailed in the mid-1980s for robbery.
"After jail he had no problems. He told me that was a place he never wanted to go back to."

 

[china]

VANCOUVER -- A Polish neighbour of Robert Dziekanski clashed numerous times with two lawyers representing RCMP officers Monday at the Braidwood Inquiry when they suggested Dziekanski was an alcoholic or prone to violence.
Iwona Kosowska, who lived in the same apartment building as Dziekanski in the southern Polish city of Gliwice, reacted angrily to the suggestions and threatened both lawyers that she would refuse to answer any more questions if they persisted.
She accused the lawyers of trying to blacken his character.
Kosowska was giving evidence via a video link from Poland and spoke through an interpreter at the inquiry into Dziekanski’s death in Vancouver International Airport after he was Tasered by four RCMP officers.
Under questioning from commission counsel Art Viertlieb, she described Dziekanski as a normal man, friendly, a good neighbour who had an interest in geography and was looking forward to starting a new life in Canada with his mother.
They had known each other socially for more than 20 years, she said, and she had often met him walking his dog.
But she said he was afraid of flying, as he had never been in an aircraft, and he didn’t sleep for 48 hours before he departed from Gliwice to fly to Frankfurt, then on to Vancouver on Oct. 13, 2007.
(Once here he would spend hours wandering around the secure arrivals area of the airport unable to find his mother, who was outside waiting and who left the airport to return to her Kamloops home when told he wasn’t there.)
There was an obvious tension in Kosowska’s evidence, but it turned to anger when she was questioned by David Butcher and then Ravi Hira about Dziekanski’s private life, his habits, disposition, and medical record.
Neither Butcher, who represents Const. Bill Bentley, nor Hira, who represents Const. Kwesi Millington, told Kosowska who they were representing. Both just said they were representing “one of the parties” at the inquiry.
Her frustration and anger boiled over when Hira turned to the amateur video recording of Dziekanski’s last moments alive, showing him tossing items around the arrivals area of the airport before being Tasered by the RCMP.
She had already maintained Dziekanski was non-violent, but Hira said the video appears to show him acting aggressively.
“Absolutely not.”
“But he appears to be throwing a computer to the ground?”
“You stop this line of questioning. I’m not going to answer any more questions. You guys made the mistake and now you want to turn everything around. For me, my friend just got killed in front of my eyes.”
“I’d like you to compare what you see on the video to the what you’ve seen of Robert over 20 years,” Hira said. “Have you ever seen Robert throw furniture against the walls?”
Her voice rose: “Sir, I want to tell you when a person comes to a foreign country without the knowledge of the language, without a cigarette, or having water to drink and no one paying him any attention — what kind of reaction are you expecting?”
“In the video he appears angry.”
“He was a helpless person looking for help.”
“You agree he had a drinking problem, an alcohol problem?”
“Can we stop this? You are trying to make a bad person out of him so you can kill a bad person, not a good person. You are trying to put words in my mouth to say he’s a bad person and had a drinking problem. You won’t hear that from me or from anyone else.”
Hira then attempted to question her about Dziekanski’s alleged criminal record for robbery, but inquiry commissioner Thomas Braidwood wouldn’t allow it.
Outside the court, Hira was met by spectators from the Polish community who said he had no shame.
“I’m doing my duty regardless of what you think,” he told them.
Hira refused to answer any questions from the media who wanted to know the basis of his allegation that Dziekanski had a criminal record.
Lawyer Walter Kosteckyj, representing Dziekanski’s mother, Zofia Cisowski, said outside court that Dziekanski “got into trouble when he was 17” and spent sometime in a reformatory, but didn’t have a criminal record.
He said Hira was “trying to muddy the water and make Mr. Dziekanski appear in a bad light.”
“When you can’t look into the facts as they are, you blame the victim,” Kosteckyj said.
The hearing will continue this week hearing video testimony from a number of Polish witnesses.

 

[grumpydigger]

Blame the victim......its a old Rcmp lawyer trick used thousands of times...........Does not work to good when video shows the truth....but it does not seem to matter what the truth really is............ protect the rcmp name at any cost................

 

[china]

Islandpacifc

You continue to hammer away at the police as your own personal vendetta.

Something wrong has happened in my country and that has to be fixed...for the benefit of the people and the country itself .

You continue to believe that since you have written to the government regarding this case that 1000's of others will jump up and write one too. It won't happenYou continue to hammer away at the police as your own personal vendetta. You continue to believe that since you have written to the government regarding this case that 1000's of others will jump up and write one too. It won't happen

I don't know how many people will contact the government in regard of this matter ;I know I have...... 2x,and that has nothing to do with any personal vendetta ; it's just being a citizen ......if you know what I mean .

 

[lone wolf]

If Dziekanski were Irish would you be so heavily into the cause?

 

[china]

lone wolf

If Dziekanski were Irish would you be so heavily into the cause?

well.....as long as he was an Irish Catholic .

 

[captain morgan]

You continue to hammer away at the police as your own personal vendetta. You continue to believe that since you have written to the government regarding this case that 1000's of others will jump up and write one too. It won't happen. What happened to Robert Dziekanski was horrible and wrong. How it was handled by everyone is horrible.

Gotta agree with you VI... Dziekanski didn't deserve what he received, however, this man took certain actions that caused multiple RCMP to deal with the situation. To be fair to the RC's, Dziekanski had acted in a manner that raised the alarm of security. It is only natural that the RC's would appraoch the situation assuming that he was agressive and hostile based on the destruction of the computer(s) and barricading himself in a room.

The above doesn't excuse the extreme use of force, but it does point to teh reality that we all must assume responsibility for our actions.

 

[china]

captain morgan

we all must assume responsibility for our actions.

.......which acccording to your post includes the 4 RCMP murderers, bravo.

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

As I recall in rape trials, it's no longer permissable for prosecutors to bring up the history of victims, because that implies "she deserved it, she was always a whoring ****, and was asking for it."

Women now get this protection, but immigrants don't. But it's not a trial, its an inquiry, so anything goes because its not "legally binding." But it is ethically. It seems lawyers haven't not yet absorbed the spirit of this new law, some several decades old.

These RCMP and lawyers just can't see the forest for the trees, they think some minor legal detail will work to their advantage, but their house has fallen down. The world is condemning the RCMP. Hello?

The RCMP is using the law without ethics. Not the best strategy for a police force. The RCMP continues to smear their reputation. These crown people who are the highest, will fall the hardest.

The current RCMP philosophy here is "no surrender," which could get the RCMP to be treated like OJ Simpson. Had OJ simply apologized and said he was stupid and made a mistake, do a few years in a country club jail, we would have forgiven him, but no, he would admit nothing so he is a pariah.

We all loved OJ and any man can understand going nuts learning another man is sleeping with his wife, here, men cut other men slack. But you have to admit guilt. Give and take is required. We all make mistakes.

A big man knows how to make a big apology.

 

[tracy]

Women in rape trials have that protection because you can't provoke rape. You can provoke someone into killing you (by trying to kill them for example). That's why there is a difference in the rules.

 

[petros]

Have they no ****ing respect for the dead?