(CBC News) - RCMP officers involved in the Taser-related death of Robert Dziekanski were also affected by the tragic incident and in need of support, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell said Friday.
Campbell made the comments a day after CBC News published internal RCMP e-mails that indicated the premier was “highly complimentary” of the police force, despite the fact Dziekanski’s death was still under investigation.
“Our police officers are also people. We ask them put themselves in harm’s way every day, and certainly the tragedy of the death shook the family right to the core, and it’s something that we all wish had never happened,” Campbell said from Quebec City Friday, where he was attending a premier’s meeting.
“I think it’s easy to forget the fact that those four police officers are also wishing that it never happened.”
Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant who did not speak English, died after being shot with a Taser stun gun at the Vancouver International Airport last October by RCMP officers called to help deal with the man, who had apparently become agitated after spending 10 hours there.
An e-mail written by Gary Bass, the RCMP deputy commissioner for the Pacific region, on Nov. 24 indicated that Campbell was “highly complimentary” of the police force despite the fact Dziekanski’s death on Oct. 14 was still under investigation.
“I just ran into our premier at the airport and we had a great 20-minute discussion on this issue generally. … He was highly complimentary of the force, disappointed over the degree of criticism and wants to support the members involved somehow,” Bass wrote in an e-mail addressed to RCMP Commissioner William Elliott and Bill Sweeney, a deputy commissioner and special adviser to the commissioner.
“He [Campbell] asked me to think about what he could do in this regard. … He supports the continued use of Taser and any other tools which support and protect our members.
“He said the inquiry will not be a negative attack on the force but a focused examination of all the issues,” Bass wrote.
The B.C. Taser inquiry, headed by retired B.C. Court of Appeal justice Thomas Braidwood, was called after Dziekanski’s death. It is one of a number of probes into the use of stun guns by police forces that were launched after the death, including an internal investigation by the RCMP and an investigation by the RCMP public complaints commissioner.
Campbell said Friday the public inquiry will consider how to ensure a similar event never happens again.
1 response so far ↓
1 CstBentonFraser // Jul 22, 2008 at 03:06
Any responsible male over the age of 14 or 15 knows when you have done something wrong and a person has died you step up to the plate and either admit it or apologize for it. You don’t send out a bunch of lies and crap trying to cover it up, only gutless cowards do that.
Maybe readers here can’t tell by a name or handle what gender a poster is but I’ll tell everyone right now I am a male. The reason I tell you this is for the women out there, we think and act differently than women. A male leader leads by example. Double-talk and hiding behind lawyers is the cowards way out.
“I think it’s easy to forget the fact that those four police officers are also wishing that it never happened.”
Not one of them, not one of these cowards have acted like a man in any way, shape or form. Not one of them, none of the four at the airport or in management have stepped up to the plate.
If by some bizarre twist of fate I was one one of the four, I would step up to the plate and express my regrets to the media and the public. To hell with the lawyers, to hell with management, being a man with integrity has worth beyond value.
“GLIWICE, Poland - One of the people interviewed by RCMP investigators who went to Poland in April to talk to people close to Robert Dziekanski described the experience as an “ordeal”…
“Most questions were to expose him as not a nice human being - not to find out what kind of person he really was.”
“I’m appalled by everything . . . including the fact the policeman was not able to look me straight in the eye.”"
Limp wristed cowards, pure and simple, that’s why.
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