Dziekanski inquiry: RCMP image battered

(Chronicle Herald Editorial) – As the last week of testimony opens in the Braidwood inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski, the question is: Can the RCMP’s reputation be blackened any further?

So far, we’ve seen how all four RCMP officers who responded to the incident involving Mr. Dziekanski on Oct. 14, 2007, at Vancouver’s international airport afterwards gave four “independent” statements that managed to paint almost identical — and equally faulty — descriptions of what happened.

Then last week, the Mountie in charge of investigating Mr. Dziekanski’s death insisted that he was not in a conflict of interest, when he clearly was.

Two days after Mr. Dziekanski had died, after being Tasered five times and forcibly restrained by RCMP officers, Supt. Wayne Rideout placed a ban on releasing more information on the case to the public.

Remarkably, at the time Supt. Rideout also stated that he did not want the force to be in the position of defending or rationalizing the officers’ actions.

But six weeks after the incident, Supt. Rideout sent out a release stating that the officers had monitored the man’s vital signs until paramedics arrived, a clear response to media reports that had suggested the police had ignored Mr. Dziekanski’s condition as he lay on the floor, handcuffed.

The lawyer for Mr. Dziekanski’s mother correctly accused the Mountie of being in a “hopeless conflict of interest,” being responsible — all at the same time — for collecting the facts, analyzing what had happened and defending the police’s actions.

Supt. Rideout, however, remained oblivious. No, he insisted, he was just caught in a difficult position in terms of public relations. The top Mountie had also discussed with the force’s headquarters in Ottawa, within a month of the Tasering, how to handle fallout from the release of a witness’s video, which sharply contradicted the RCMP’s version of events.

The refusal — or inability — of the lead investigator to see, even 19 months after the fact, that he was in a totally compromised position is astounding.

At least Supt. Rideout admitted his decision not to correct erroneous information given out in the first days after Mr. Dziekanski’s death was, in hindsight, a mistake. Initial – and incorrect – police statements saying Mr. Dziekanski had been combative, had to be tackled even after being Tasered, and had only been stunned twice were allowed to stand, even after a bystander’s cellphone video showed otherwise. In fact, the Polish immigrant was not combative, fell to the floor screaming after the first Taser shot, and had been shocked five times in total.

Given what’s come out thus far, the credibility of the RCMP’s ability to investigate itself fairly has been severely damaged. At the very least, the Mounties should have brought in police investigators from other jurisdictions across the country.

RCMP Commissioner William Elliot’s remarks last week, urging Canadians not to jump to conclusions about what happened, are also a bit much, since the Mounties seemed to do just that, from the beginning.

As a result, an innocent Polish immigrant is dead, his mother is devastated and the national force’s once proud reputation has been battered.