Brian Hutchinson (National Post) – The lawyer for RCMP Constable Kwesi Millington had just made an awful undertaking, exhuming fragments of a dead man’s past.
No surprise, then, that Ravi Hira was met with fierce hostility the second he walked from the inquiry room where circumstances surrounding the death of Polish traveller Robert Dziekanski are being examined. Among the issues raised by Mr. Hira at the inquiry yesterday: A “toxic relationship” that Mr. Dziekanski may or may not have had with a woman back in Poland. An unspecified juvenile conviction and supposed five-year sentence, back in Poland. A “drinking problem.”
Nothing based on a presented fact. Relevance to the inquiry looking at circumstances around Mr. Dziekanski’s death? None.
“Scum!” shouted one inquiry spectator, outraged at the lawyer’s muckraking. “Shame!” yelled another when Mr. Hira left the inquiry room.
Const. Millington deployed an RCMP-issued Taser on Mr. Dziekanski five times at Vancouver International Airport, in October, 2007. The officer and three other Mounties then wrestled with Mr. Dziekanski on the airport carpet. He lost consciousness and died.
All four RCMP officers have testified before inquiry commissioner Thomas Braidwood, a retired judge. Each of them acknowledged having made erroneous statements to police investigators after Mr. Dziekanski’s death.
The faulty statements and notes could be interpreted as self-serving justifications for what seems to all the world a rash response to a disturbance complaint. The four officers made Mr. Dziekanski to be a non-compliant, menacing threat, whereas contemporaneous videotape evidence of the event disproves it.
For many observers, the RCMP’s dissembling at the inquiry and the alleged attempt at a “cover-up” are more offensive than their clumsy efforts to subdue an agitated airport traveller. Mistakes are one thing; avoiding responsibility for them is another.
Members of British Columbia’s Polish-Canadian community are already calling on the province’s attorney-general to reopen an investigation into Mr. Dziekanski’s death, and they want an independent special prosecutor to handle the matter. “It is time to stop blaming the victim,” reads a press release that one of the community members pressed upon inquiry observers yesterday. But “blaming the victim” was the day’s theme. Mr. Hira ensured that, during his cross-examination of a witness from Gwice, Poland, Mr. Dziekanski’s hometown.
Iwona Kosowska testified via video link. She had already told the inquiry that Mr. Dziekanski, her neighbour for 20 years, was a decent chap who was interested in geography but nervous about travel. A trip to Canada to see his mother was a big deal for him.
Previously, the inquiry heard from passengers who shared flights with Mr. Dziekanski, from Poland to Frankfurt and on to Vancouver. To a person, they testified that he seemed unremarkable.
Speaking calmly and slowly, and almost apologizing in advance, Mr. Hira asked the witness to agree that Mr. Dziekanski had had a drinking problem.
The question was translated. Ms. Kosowska listened and instantly became furious. “You are trying to make [him out to be] a bad person so you can … kill a bad person,” she snapped. “I am fed up. I’m not going to answer that question…. How could you? You are trying to put words in my mouth that he was a bad person.”
Mr. Hira persisted. “He did not have a drinking problem?”
“Of course not,” replied the witness.
The lawyer wasn’t finished. He asked if Mr. Dziekanski had done some “jail time” back in Poland.
That prompted Walter Kosteckyj, counsel for Mr. Dziekanski’s mother, to rise to object. Yes, the deceased had apparently been in an “incident,” as a 17-year-old. But so what? He had cleared a criminal record background check before coming to Canada. He had been admitted into the country before his confrontation with the RCMP.
“This is totally inappropriate,” barked Mr. Kosteckyj. Some observers in the public gallery broke into applause.
But still Mr. Hira kept at it, mentioning something about “a five-year sentence.” Before he could offer more, Mr. Braidwood cut him off. “That is irrelevant,” he said. “I’ve ruled against you.”
One more try: Mr. Hira peered into his video monitor and asked Ms. Kosowska if it was not true that back in Poland, Mr. Dziekanski had been in a “toxic relationship” with his girlfriend. Mr. Kosteckyj objected again. “Are these questions really relevant?” he asked.
They are, Mr. Hira fired back. Their purpose is “to explain some of [Mr. Dziekanski's] behaviour at the airport.” Mr. Braidwood didn’t buy it; mercifully, the cross-examination ended and a shaken Ms. Kosowska signed off.
Alone outside the inquiry room, Mr. Hira squared off with his hecklers. “Sir,” he told one of them, “it was my duty [to ask those questions]. And I will continue to do my duty.” With that, he stormed off.
The inquiry continues today.
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