Robert Dziekański Taser incident
RCMP officers taser a handcuffed and pinned Dziekański minutes before his death at YVR
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| Time | 1:28 AM PDT |
|---|---|
| Date | October 14, 2007 |
| Location |
Vancouver International Airport, Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. |
| Deaths | 1 |
Robert Dziekański, Polish pronunciation: [ˈrɔbɛrt dʑeˈkaɲski] (April 15, 1967 – October 14, 2007) was a Polish immigrant to Canada who was killed on October 14, 2007, during an arrest at the Vancouver International Airport in Richmond, British Columbia. He was tasered five times by members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who encountered Dziekański while he was unarmed and detained alone in a secured room at the airport.
Full details of the incident became public after Paul Pritchard, an eyewitness, filmed a video of it. The police initially took possession of the video, refusing to return it to Pritchard. Pritchard went to court to obtain it, then released it to the press. The final inquiry report, released on June 18, 2010, concluded that the RCMP were not justified in using a Taser against Mr. Dziekański and that the officers later deliberately misrepresented their actions to investigators.
Robert Dziekański was a construction worker by trade, but had also worked as a miner. He was in the process of emigrating from Gliwice, Poland, to live with his mother, Zofia Cisowski, in Kamloops, British Columbia.
Dziekański's flight was two hours late, and arrived at about 3:15 pm on October 13, 2007. According to official sources, Dziekański required language support to complete initial customs formalities. After he completed initial immigration processing, his whereabouts between 4:00 p.m. and about 10:45 p.m. remain unclear, though at various points he was seen around the baggage carousels. Dziekański's mother, Zofia Cisowski, had told him to wait for her at the baggage claim area but it was a secured area where she was not allowed to enter. At 10:45 p.m., when he attempted to leave the Customs hall, he was directed again to secondary immigration as his visa had not yet been processed. Dziekański's immigration procedures were completed at about 12:15 a.m. on October 14. After 30 minutes in an immigration waiting area, he was taken to the international arrivals reception area. Cisowski had been making enquiries of airport staff since the early afternoon. Airport staff told her Dziekański was not at the airport and she had returned to Kamloops at about 10 p.m., believing her son had missed his flight.
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