Brian Hutchinson, Vancouver, B.C. (National Post) – Was Robert Dziekanski being “unco-operative” when he stepped away from four RCMP officers at Vancouver International Airport, or was he obeying a command?
It has become a key question at the inquiry examining circumstances that led to the Polish traveller’s death.
RCMP officers who testified this week before inquiry commissioner Thomas Braidwood both claimed Mr. Dziekanski demonstrated resistance when, after being confronted at the airport’s secured international arrivals area in October, 2007, he turned and moved toward a counter.
At the inquiry yesterday, a frame-by-frame dissection of contemporaneous video footage threw doubt on this interpretation. A lawyer acting for the Government of Poland brought Constable Bill Bentley back to the event.
“I am going to suggest to you that Mr. Dziekanski was ordered to the counter, by way of sign language,” said Don Rosenbloom. “Do you recall that?”
“No,” said Const. Bentley, in his second day of testimony. He testified earlier that Mr. Dziekanski seemed “calm” when Const. Bentley and three other RCMP officers approached him at the airport after complaints about the traveller’s behaviour. The situation seemed to present “no urgency at the time,” the constable said.
But, he testified, Mr. Dziekanski quickly became “unco-operative” and moved to the counter. He grabbed a stapler, which the officers considered a weapon.
“And when his behaviour escalated to combative, we responded with the appropriate intervention,” the constable testified.
Mr. Dziekanksi was jolted five times with a Taser, deployed by another RCMP officer. He was wrestled with on the ground; his face turned blue, his heart stopped and he died, the inquiry has heard.
Mr. Rosenbloom reviewed for the inquiry the video footage recorded at the scene by passerby Paul Pritchard. Run at slow speed, the video shows one of the four RCMP officers directing Mr. Dziekanski away from the spot where they were all gathered, and in the direction of a counter inside the secured area.
Identified yesterday as Corporal Benjamin Monty Robinson, the officer had his arm extended. He pointed a gloved index finger.
Mr. Dziekanski is seen throwing his hands up in air, as if in resignation, and walking in the direction as commanded. The four officers then surrounded him.
Const. Bentley’s reading of the events: “I interpret [Robinson] as giving him an order. For using body language or pointing to direct him somewhere.”
“Precisely,” said Mr. Rosenbloom. “He’s giving him an order. And the order is for him to move to the counter. Do you not agree?”
Not quite: “I perceive it as him ordering him over to the counter, after he’s thrown up his arms and walked away from us… [But] I’m uncertain whether he’s complied with that order because his behaviour to me changed before Cpl. Robinson directed his arm to the counter,” Const. Bentley said. “So, from what I’m seeing, Cpl. Robinson is reacting to Dziekanski’s behaviour.”
On it went: Mr. Rosenbloom proposed what seemed obvious; Const. Bentley demurred or deflected. He would not admit that Mr. Dziekanski had correctly complied with the order to move to the counter.
On which sat the stapler. No one had directed Mr. Dziekanski to pick that up, of course. His bad decision was fatal.
But why had Const. Bentley claimed in his initial police statement that, at the moment of first contact with the RCMP, “right away [Mr. Dziekanski] started backing up, looking for something to grab. He uses an object and putting that in front of him he kind of swung it at us.”
He conceded that he had not “articulated it the best.” He hadn’t meant to mislead police homicide investigators in explaining the RCMP’s role in the Dziekanski incident.
“Is that was this was about?” asked Walter Kosteckyj, the lawyer representing Mr. Dziekanski’s mother. “That you were making sure you were justified in using force, when you were telling this story?
“There was no cover-up, if that’s what you’re getting at,” countered Const. Bentley. “I was just being honest and truthful.”
The inquiry resumes on Monday, with more RCMP testimony.
Read what I wrote, you even pasted it there.
I assume competent counsel for the defense would have cautioned their clients not to discuss the event. Whether they did or not, you will never know unless they say so, will you?
30 lies and you’re fired.
I wonder if the statements were taken before or after the meeting with the superiors? Hummm!
“Nothing sinister or covert about meeting with superiors. It was well publicized…”
So Commission Counsel Verlieb was mistaken when he said the meeting where the members discussed their versions of events had never been disclosed in all the months of preparation for the Inquiry?
Perhaps Cst. Millington was mistaken when he said they never discussed the incident among themselves.
Maybe Bentley lost the script but his testimony seemed pretty specific, including some names.
You should spend a little time in a court room if you think that this is unusual. Witness accounts vary from inception to finality in a court room. If you think that any witness is 100% accurate immediately following and traumatic event you have to look no further than some of the wrongful identifications in court settings, reversal of testimony, contradictions by later learned facts.
After the crown and the defense are finished with a witness, it is not unusual for items never before discovered arise. One of the reasons we have such a system.
Just as the information relayed to the officers as they went to the call was flawed, so to would be the response. The same holds true for the press releases before all the facts are in. Like any system, suppositions are made along with the scarcity of information at hand. If you think that all the facts are known in the first few hours or even weeks after a major event, you live in a dream world.
You seem to take issue with the RCMP providing support to the officers involved. Better to cut them loose, provide no support or counseling? I hope your employer treats you better than that. Nothing sinister or covert about meeting with superiors. It was well publicized. Perhaps you would like them to not know their rights and obligations as expected by the same superiors. Or were you there and know that the coven met to construct an infallible obfuscation as you suggest? More pathetic speculation.
You seem to confuse misinformation/wrong information with inevitable mistakes following any major traumatic circumstance, and automatically label it “untruthful” instead of inaccurate.
Cst. Bentley’s probably accidental admission in testimony was that more senior RCMP staff had called the four homicide participants to a meeting to discuss their individual stories together and to lend support to each other.
I’m waiting now to read the transcripts to determine how Cst. Rundel answered when asked if he had discussed his testimony with anyone else prior to the Inquiry.
The record clearly shows that RCMP untruthfulness about this incident began immediately. The Braidwood Inquiry demonstrates that it continues now.
Now I see someone really asking intellegent questions here and wanting to get at the truth in this matter.
Comparing the event with their statements is really where the tires meet the road in some of these cases and where the truth and the lies that have seemingly floded our newspapers and our courts from some of these departments will be found and identified.
It seems the blame game strategy as a form of covering up what goes wrong is released to often to stear rather that to inform the media and the public by officers in command and this also must be looked into.