When tasers were first introduced into the law enforcement arena they were hailed as a non-lethal way of bringing volatile situations to a close. It appears as time moves forward that they are being used by police far to quickly, with sometimes lethal consequences.

If not so tragic, the testimony at the Braidwood inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski would be a comical farce. Dziekanski was a 40 year old Polish immigrant who arrived at Vancouver airport in October 2007. He spent about 10 hours wandering the airport, inhibited by not knowing any English from getting the help he needed to locate his mother who was to meet him on his arrival.

Eventually the RCMP were called, four of them arriving at the airport to confront this obviously tired and frustrated immigrant. Thankfully, someone at the airport managed to video what happened as, within roughly 30 seconds, of their arrival the four mounties had tasered the man 5 times, wrestled with him to subdue him and then realized he was dead. Read the rest of this entry »