Video of man tasered to death
Be warned, the man writhes on the ground and screams for a long time before he dies. It's disturbing.
From an October 26 post on Boing Boing:
Akezys says: "Recently police at the Vancouver airport were attempting to question a recent immigrant that could not speak English. They tasered him after 24 seconds of speaking with him. The man had spent 10 hours stuck in the airport with no-one helping him."Link (Thanks, James!)
Update:
In the comments section, Kyle Armbruster has an excellent explanation about why it's important to make this video available:
Okay, folks:A "snuff film" is a kind of pornographic film where you are watching someone die because you get off on it. No one here is getting off on it. In fact, the "not getting off on it"-ness is actually what the whole thread is about. This is a primary news source. If you don't want to watch it, fine. But...
As for people's feelings that they got nothing new out of watching the beheading videos (I've seen several) or the Hussein video (saw it) or this (haven't seen it yet--at work), although I cannot, of course, speak for them personally, I kind of doubt it.
I'll go further. I think it's extremely important to view things like this. We're so used to TV violence, movie violence, and video game violence--so used to the abstract concept of death, even violent death--that we have a tendency to become nonchalant, cavalier about it. Looking these things in the face demystifies them. It's not dramatic. It's not moving. It just is.
It reminds us that we are fragile. It reminds us that if someone wants, it is quick and easy to end our lives. It reminds us that there are people who do this, for whatever reason. Maybe they're just crazy assholes (beheading videos). Maybe they are paid and/or required to do it (Hussein, any videos from wartime). Maybe they do it because they are incompetent, dangerous assholes (this video). It reminds us how far we can go, and how far we mustn't go, and how far we must do our best to not allow our public servants to go unless actually necessary.
I encourage you all to watch these things. It's hard. You will wince. You might cry. You might feel sick to your stomach. But you will know, to the very fiber of your being, what the fuss is all about.
I'm so old I can remember when police were able to actually walk up to someone and take them into custody with only their hands and a well placed nightstick, judo hold.
Interesting point, ElysianArtists. If people are within a secure area in an airport, they clearly do not have easy access to deadly weapons.
So, why do the police find it necessary to use a close to lethal weapon? Wouldn't it be safer for all if all lethal weapons were restricted inside the airport security zones?
Distraught? Wll y sm t hv lrdy tkn stnc.
I would use disgruntled, angry, foolhardy, but not distraught, even if he did wait 10 hours at the airport.
And no, I've been told by a visiting RCMP in highschool (I live in the Greater Vancouver area) that a collaspable baton to the head and chest is considered lethal force. Non-lethal use of batons would be restricted to limbs, if my memory holds.
A chair to the right parts of the body would be equivalent to a baton to the right parts of the body, only with more weight and momentum. I would think you wouldn't say that the chair is not a deadly weapon if he broke one over someone's head, and cause major damage.
Bt thn 'm prbbly gng t gt mlln flm pst ftr ths, bcs th mjrty f th Bng Bng rdrs (nd wrtrs fr tht mttr) hd md p thr mnds n th ss, nd n thr vws f th plc n gnrl nywys.
I don't think you should be linking to this.
This is a snuff movie.
Did you also link to the Iraq beheadings or US prison executions?
I haven't seen it, and am on the fence about watching it. On one hand I think it's incredibly important for us to realize what these weapons are capable of, especially in the hands of public servants and private security personnel. On the other, I don't like to watch people die (nor do most others, I believe).
I do think it was appropriate for Mark to post it, as taser use is becoming a serious issue for all of us and he clearly labeled the video for what it is.
Might need a unicorn chaser or three, though.
So it was actually the taser that killed him then, and not the physical struggle? At 7:12 you can still seem him violently struggling after the tasering has stopped. At 8:12 the filmer makes a comment of "Why is he still fighting them off?" Long after the taser.
I think it's far more likely he had a heart attack as the result of the physical struggle. All the well placed nightsticks and judo holds in the world won't save someone who insists on continuing to struggle and fight until he has a heart attack and dies.
I don't see where the taser was necessary (I don't see where it gained the police anything) but I also think you're playing to the crowd with your thriller title of "video of man tasered to death".
It should be "video of man who dies apparently as a result of physically struggling with the police". You guys seem to think that batons and physical confrontations are some kind of ultra humane alternative to tasers when in fact it looks like the physical confrontation is what killed the guy.
I also wonder what the guy with the baton is whacking on at 8:27.
Man, I can only imagine what goes through that mother's heart when she sees that video. Poor woman.
I don't know if I can watch it. Just reading about it made me impossibly angry.
But in order to be a good observer/journalist, to truly be able to say that he didn't NEED a tasering...sigh.
To the cop-sympathetic poster(s): Yes, we have already made up our mind that using a near-lethal weapon is only appropriate when the situation calls for a near-lethal weapon. Honestly. What is wrong with using old-fashioned handcuffs/batons to the limbs/arms to the arms? I have not heard of someone dying from nothing more than handcuffs and arm-arm struggles. But I have heard of them dying from tasers.
Just go with the safer, more human route. Why not?
uh, i think i'll skip watching this one, thanks. i don't think i'm up to seeing it. i'm still scarred from watching hussein's hanging. i though that would be an important thing to watch, and it was, but for reasons different than i was expecting.
Wow, so Boing Boing is now linking to snuff films? If someone I knew or cared about was killed on video--even unjustly--I wouldn't want it circulated on the net. It's sickening to see it linked on a site like this one (which I previously enjoyed so much).
My impression was that the mother wanted it circulated. Could be wrong though.
DON'T TAZE ME TO DEATH, BRO!
(cheers wampus)
i can say with absolute certainty that i do not enjoy watching these movies. However, to be an informed citizen and rightly justified in my opinions i feel obligated. Its horrific and shocking but that is exactly what needs to be done. People need to realize that the use of tasers is horrific and shocking (no pun intended) and needs to stop.
ps. thank you for making it a choice to watch this and not forcing it on your readers. seriously
not so much a wonderful thing.
I agree that the video should be shown. It can be very difficult to figure out exactly what happened in an altercation with police; if, for example, we had simply been told that police tased a man who was hurling chairs around, that might seem more reasonable than the events recorded. Getting a trustworthy account of the situation is an essential step in forming an educated opinion, and the sad fact is that in this sort of case the only trustworthy accounts are the ones that come out of recording devices.
A few thoughts:
- wouldn't clearing the area of other people and letting his anger run its course be a better idea (yes, a few chairs/furniture get broken but he could only keep that up for so long)
- surely they could have found someone in Vancouver who could speak enough Polish to yell "Calm down, we're trying to HELP you"
Only a few months ago, a fellow was tasered to death in a bar near where I work. I'm concerned my fellow Canadians are picking up bad habits.
According to reports when this all went down (a month ago), the man died a short time later in custody when he stopped breathing. So to be morbidly precise, we don't witness his death in the video.
That said, the video is extremely disturbing. I'm surprised it was released unedited.
I won't watch it.
The thing I don't get is, if Tasers are necessary to subdue people who behave in a threatening manner, what did the police do -before- the Taser was invented? I mean, it must have been horrible, all those chair-throwers out there destroying airport decor as the police stood by, helplessly watching, wishing, WISHING they had some options...
Calyth:
Here's how I read your comment: "A man is killed by police? So fucking what!? That's what police are supposed to do. Get over it."
It's the same old "He had it coming, he was out of control" argument that never had any validity and never will, or at least not until we give up on trying to rein in trigger-happy, murderous thugs masquerading as peace officers.
To those readers who object to the link to the "snuff" film: I completely understand your not wanting to view it, but to compare this to people watching snuff films for enjoyment is off base.
This is a deadly serious issue (no pun intended) and seeing the video is important for anyone who wants to try to understand what happened. The truth is ugly.
As a long time traveller, I can sympathize deeply with going slightly bonkers about being stuck in an airport for 10 hours after a long flight, where you don't speak the language.
His actions, though extreme were a desperate call for attention as obviously no-one was taking any notice of him.
I invite the reader to imagine being trapped in a room where you don't speak the language, have no knowledge of what's going on, you are tired, jetlagged, and know that your relatives are waiting for you. And it goes on and on and on and on... and you don't know if it will ever end.
Fundamentally I blame the rhetoric of the war on terror more than I blame the cops.
We're in fear these days. Law enforcement considers itself the thin blue line between a devastating attack and safety. Hence brutal snap decisions are made, because no-one wants to be the one who let the terrorist get through.
It's shocking that this happened in Canada, yet fortunate as well. In most other countries this would have been hushed up and it would have been business as usual.
boingboing is truly a directory of wonderful things
Orwellian nightmare aside, is anybody doing anything to help the victim's elderly mother? My understanding was that he was coming to Vancouver to assist her. Who is doing that now? Has anyone created a fund or way to offer donations?
@NONESUCH
It looks to me like he's just hitting his baton against the ground to collapse it.
I think a lot of people are grasping at straws here to determine the larger reason for this man's death, but it does look like a pretty serious case of overreaction. As one person said, it almost looks like a training video on what not to do when handling a situation like this, and I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being used as such.
In the end, though, this is an isolated incident that people are drawing all sorts of conclusions from. It's easy to become emotionally charged when watching a video of the event, but we shouldn't let that cloud are judgment or cause us to be overly swayed in our priorities and our determinations of what needs to be fixed. After all, that would be overreacting politically, and that in my mind is an even greater problem than police overreacting with tasers. It's just too easy to react viscerally to a graphic representation of something and see it as symptomatic of the severity of a greater problem.
Judgments should not be derived from isolated incidents, and we shouldn't overuse isolated incidents too sensationally to ply political agendas no matter how important they are to us. This is why we as a public are always tempted to bring back the death penalty when someone commits an unimaginably horrid crime, and tempted to abolish it when someone is executed that shouldn't have been.
I think it's really disgusting for you to link to this Mark. Of all the editors on here I think you show the least amount of decency when it comes to posts. I remember your joking post about a "prison beauty pageant".
A clearly disturbed (at least at the time) is dead. I don't think that needs to be compounded by a bunch of people casually surfing the net gawking at his demise.
The CBC should be ashamed of itself for posting the original video to start with really. What purpose does that serve beyond a prurient interest? This isn't Lt. Colonel Nguyen shooting a dissident, I highly doubt the people behind those tasers meant to kill, or ever really harm, that man.
There's no excuse for police doing this. He was clearly distraught, he was pacing about and breathing heavily. He needed to be detained because he was becoming a danger to himself and others, but that group of cops could easily take him down without the use of weapons. ELYSIANARTIST is spot-on.
KM (19),
Before tasers it was pepper spray. Before pepper spray it was sticks, guns and fists.
Here's an interesting report. I wish I could find one like this for taser usage. Maybe one hasn't been made yet:
http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/195739.pdf
It basically demonstrates how officer injury rates as well as suspect injury rates decline after pepper spray was introduced.
In other words, without pepper spray and tasers, officers had to use physical force and this resulted in more injuries for everyone. When we propose removing tasers, we're really proposing we go back to a time where injuries and deaths were more common.
And lest we forget the dangers police officers face:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20071113_Troubling_rise_in_shooting_of_police.html
Jun Dai (24) raised the best point, which is that this is an isolated incident and sensationalist journalism based on isolated incidents isn't doing anyone any favors.
The guy had obviously completely lost his marbles. He looks like he's hyperventilating.
What on earth is that lady trying to do through the glass??
~Oswegan
I am in no way commenting on the appropriateness of the use of a Taser in this specific situation. Whether this was the right thing to do or not depends of so many factors that I don't know about (this department's use of force continuum, the actions of the man as perceived by the officers, etc.) that I feel it is premature to come to any conclusions.
That being said, the lethality of Tasers has been wildly overestimated. She and I have spent quite a bit of time trying to determine the statistics on Taser-related deaths related to the overall use of Tasers. As near as we can estimate, the ~200 Taser-related deaths represent .1% of the uses of Taser within the 11 year period these deaths have been reported. Those are very good odds.
My wife is an officer so obviously these types of stories really hit home for us. She would be devastated if any force she had to use on a suspect resulted in any significant harm. Despite what many seem to think, most officers have absolutely no desire to harm anyone. They simply want to do their job in such a way as to ensure that everybody is safe, suspects, officers and the public alike.
I watched it not for the morbid curiosity of the man dying, but I wanted to understand the circumstances that it happened. We're lucky that this 10-minute video gives us a significantly better understanding.
I blipped through the part where the guy was being tased because I really don't have interest and it's horrifying in general.
I'm not sure, either, why people wouldn't want this kind of information to be readily available. When there are reports of government abuses, wouldn't direct, first-hand information about the situation and transparency typically be the best thing, and not having to take people's word for it?
There have already been benefits of release of this video, namely much more accurate information available about the trajedy:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/11/14/bc-taservideo.html?ref=rss
The impressions that I walk away with:
- The security guards seemed to be calm and in control. The RCMP, when they arrived, just seemed to help escalate the situation.
- The RCMP came in like cowboys - shouting, very aggressive, jumping over barriers.
- There was absolutely zero attempt to calm the man, or done anything to avoid direct physical contact
- The man was given no valid opportunity to comply. They knew he spoke no english. He was given a matter of seconds and commands in english, after which he was tazed.
On one hand, we have the benefit of hindsight of the guy's backstory. We know that he was just a Polish immigrant who really spoke no english. We know that he'd been trying to find his way out of the airport for 10 hours by the time that the event happened. We have a reasonable confidence that he wasn't a maniac. And when the RCMP arrived, they didn't know any of this.
However, this event doesn't leave me with much confidence that the RCMP has the ability or motivation to de-escalate situations without force. And that's something that worries me about any police force.
Actually living in Vancouver this video has been kind of been on most people's minds... as the RCMP initially took possession of the original, saying that it would be returned in a week, it took them three almost four... only after the owner raised a fuss legally and publically. It was then shown to the mother of the man involved, and its assumed with her permission only then given out. It was released quite openly to many press organizations and probably beyond, unedited so that no one could say that it was tampered with or altered and therefore cry conspiracy.
It was played on MANY local newscasts in what appeared to be its entirety, with warnings to NOT watch given its graphic nature. At least here you have the option to not press play, if you were watching the news last night unless you turned off the TV, went to get a soda, or did something to avoid watching the first 15 mins of the news, this is all you pretty much saw at the local news time of 6pm local here. Is it right to post? Well was it right to air? Anyone can debate that question with no resolution.
Was the RCMP correct in their handling of this situation? That too could be argued with no resolution, however it doesn't help that people dying while being handled or within actual custody of the RCMP is on the rise.
My opinion is that, in an international airport I would think that there could be more people available that speak a good number of languages, because in a lot of ways this was simply a failure of communication, and anyone who has attempted to communicate with someone who doesn't share at least some language with you can be an exasperating experience, add a very confusing jet lagged agitated state and you get some very frustrated angry situations easily happening. There are those who would say that One should know the language at least a bit of the place you are going to, and while that is ideal, here in Canada such a stance is less emphasized than simply attempting to provide materials and translators for people who speak languages other than english or french (our two official languages). Finding someone who could linguistically identify and perhaps speak a little polish would have been a less disasterous option here, and one that has precedent here so many times over that its horrifying it wasn't thought about.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/11/14/bc-taserrelease.html?ref=rss
From the link:
"After police subdued Dziekanski with the Taser and handcuffed him on the ground, the video shows how one officer in the video put his entire body weight on Dziekanski's head and neck while another put his weight on Dziekanski's back, Pritchard said."
I'm not sure at what point this happened in the video but that's been the cause of death in other incidents: asphyxiation due to too much weight being applied during the arrest.
'm frd th rl cs f dth nd th rl ncssry crrctv ctn s gng t g mstly nntcd bcs w'r t bsy hvng fts bt pt pv.
Decency is no reason to ignore a wrongful death!
Boing Boing is not the blog to read for those of you who wish to remain happily comotose to the surrounding world.
Garret: Unless you take secret delight in being disgusted by my indecent posts, may I suggest you read Boing Boing via RSS and filter all of my posts from the feed. It's not that hard to implement.
"In the end, though, this is an isolated incident that people are drawing all sorts of conclusions from."
Isolated? Do you follow current events? Have you ever?
"Judgments should not be derived from isolated incidents, and we shouldn't overuse isolated incidents too sensationally to ply political agendas no matter how important they are to us."
Right, because anyone who objects to this sort of thing is using it as agitprop for their political agendas.
And let's be clear about something: sensationalism is when the media blows up an insignificant thing in order to make it newsworthy. Sorry if this one man's death doesn't strike you as newsworthy or significant, but some of us feel that it is.
"Was the RCMP correct in their handling of this situation? That too could be argued with no resolution..."
Really? Why not? It's called "an investigation."
"... however it doesn't help that people dying while being handled or within actual custody of the RCMP is on the rise."
Yes, that is problematic.
I was a news photo editor during the first years of the Iraq war, and consequently was required to watch the Pearl and Berg beheading videos. I never felt that having witnessed the actual footage added anything substantial to my understanding of the event. It just made me feel bad for their families to know that these films were out there.
To the poster above who smells bias in the negative reactions: do you really want to live in a world where people's first reaction to the death of another person is positive? The man was alone, and unarmed. He was throwing a tantrum, but was he acting like he was going to kill people? It takes an interesting worldview to see a tantrum as a capital offense.
Police officers are trained to deal with exactly this kind of situation in such a way that no one is killed. Tasers are, unfortunately, being used automatically in situations where normal restraining techniques would work.
It's lazy and lethal, two approaches rejected by any good cop (and there are many).
I think Boing Boing has crossed the line. One doesn't need to watch a snuff film to be outraged by the agonizing death of another human being. Posting this link goes beyond bad-taste, it is absolutely undefendable and is EXACTLY the sort of thing that other extremists have done to make THEIR points.
Whether the Tasering of a frightened and angry tourist, or the slow beheading of a captive in the middle east, those who post such things are slime and beneath contempt.
I've greatly enjoyed Boing Boing Mark, but if you are just going to use it as a vehicle to show snuff films, color me disgusted and gone.
While I stand by my point about this being an isolated incident and sensationalism being a very serious problem, I won't go so far as @Garrett. I do think that the release of this video, while bound to bring out the worst in sensationalism, is important. Information like this should generally be made available for public consumption unless there's a very good reason not to, which I don't see in this case. Transparency should be the default mode of operations.
At a very minimum it gives us an opportunity to compare what we read about to the event as captured on camera, which gives us some insight into our journalists and the 'official stories' of these kind of events. It also gives us some insight into the event itself, and if that's not worth having, then why report the event at all?
Virgil,
"I never felt that having witnessed the actual footage added anything substantial to my understanding of the event."
OK, but you can't logically deduce from those two experiences that one should, as a rule, not watch footage like this. Some footage will be enlightening, some will not.
Per your other comments I say, "Right on!" except that for me, the question of how lethal tasers are isn't the issue in cases like this.
The issue is in my opinion is "what are we going to do about wrongful deaths at the hands of police officers?" Whether this is an example of that I leave for others to determine.
Ceronomus: I have two suggestions for you.
1. Look up the definition of "snuff film." The video linked to (with ample warnings as to its disturbing nature) is not a snuff film.
2. If you suspect you might be offended by something on the other side of a link, don't click it. Nobody forced you to watch it.
@Ceronomus and others:
As citizens it is our *responsibility* when there are reports of governmental abuse to investigate, educate ourselves, and take action if needed.
I don't see why doing this is considered by some to be a bad thing.
This video contains not only the tragedy itself, but contains a lot of context around the tragedy. This isn't a "hey, watch this guy get killed" video. It's a "learn more about what led up to the tragic event" video.
True, there will be some sick individuals who will view this as entertainment. The correct response to that is NOT to bury your head, avoid the problem, and assume that everything will sort itself out. Without a well-informed public it most certainly will NOT.
Garrett, how can you say that Mark and the CBC should be ashamed of themselves for their lack of decency? Posting this video as widely as possible is the only decent thing to do.
Poor Mr. Dziekanski was the victim of two terrible injustice. The first was his awful and needless death. But it's the second injustice that is the real reason we all need to see this video: he was slandered by the RCMP in their attempt to cover up their wrongdoing. This video vindicates him.
The RCMP confiscated the video and refused to make it public or return it to its owner. They then claimed that Mr. Dziekanski was violent in resisting arrest and that the officers acted reasonably in tasering him. It took a court order to return the video and expose their deception. And, awful as it is (I almost cried and stopped it as soon as he was stunned), it does just that.
If the RCMP had immediately apologized for the death, promised a review, and reprimanded the officers, then public release of the video would have been gratuitous. That didn't happen. Instead, we had to turn to the video as a last resort to pry some accountability from the police and respect the memory of Mr. Dziekanski.
If his dignity suffers by distribution of the video, the blame lies with those who tried to cover it up, not with those who ultimately revealed it.
Personally, I wish editors would focus on the wonderful things. I've got plenty of trusted sources for hard news and enjoy flicking to boingboing for light relief from time to time.
Not to say that tasers or deaths in custody or executions shouldn't be reported by you, but maybe you could fork them to a different blog?
Lttr B,
f crs, tw wrngs mk rght, hw cld hv frgttn tht smpl trsm.
Thr s rsn tht r mnstrm md n th S lng hld t rl bt dth. Y ddn't shw t. Mmnts ldng p t? Ys, bt nt dth. Shwng ths mns ctl dms n th ntrnt ccmplshs nthng mr thn NT shwng hs dth wld f, t lst nt n prdctv fshn.
Mr. Dzknsk hs bn th vctm f THR njstcs.
1) Hs dth
2) Th slndr
3) Th pstng f hs dth t st t drv d clcks.
Y'r rght Mrk, ddn't hv t wtch t, nd ddn't.
" snff flm, r snff mv, dpcts th ctl kllng f hmn bng - hmn scrfc (wtht th d f spcl ffcts r thr trckry) prptrtd fr th mdm f flm fr th prps f ntrtnmnt nd dstrbtn."
f crs, ths flm wsn't md fr th prps f dstrbtn...y jst dstrbtd t nywys.
ntrtnmnt? Dn't kd yrslf. Sts lk Rttn.cm r ngh t shw tht thr r ppl t thr wh R ntrtnd by ths srt f thng.
S ys Mrk, snff flm, nd y r ts prvyr. Cngrts!
Y'r rght Mrk, ddn't hv t wtch t, nd ddn't.
" snff flm, r snff mv, dpcts th ctl kllng f hmn bng - hmn scrfc (wtht th d f spcl ffcts r thr trckry) prptrtd fr th mdm f flm fr th prps f ntrtnmnt nd dstrbtn."
f crs, ths flm wsn't md fr th prps f dstrbtn...y jst dstrbtd t nywys.
ntrtnmnt? Dn't kd yrslf. Sts lk Rttn.cm r ngh t shw tht thr r ppl t thr wh R ntrtnd by ths srt f thng.
S ys Mrk, snff flm, nd y r ts prvyr. Cngrts!
Just to point out a couple examples of "arguing past one another":
This has nothing to do with objecting to what happened, or with objecting to police brutality in general. This has to do with two things: (1) inferring the widespreadness of police brutality from this incident and (2) using this incident as an emotional appeal to convince others of the widespreadness of police brutality as a serious problem.
I suspect that police brutality is too widespread, but in the scheme of that argument this video is only a small piece of evidence.
. . .
? Who's arguing that we should have a world where people's first reaction to the death of another person is positive? Who's arguing that a tantrum is a capital offense? What exactly is your point?
Regarding the appropriateness of boinboing posting this video--I certainly realize boingboing is not a democracy so this is not meant as a statement in that direction, but let's pose a simple, hypothetical poll: if you were tasered and died as a result or had a relative who suffered the same fate, would you want this video distributed as widely as possible?
I would. I think most people would, especially if they felt it was undeserved or inappropriate. (and I don't think it's a stretch that the guy or his family feel that he didn't deserve to die).
NIck D.;
I probably should have been more explicit: I was explaining why I chose not to watch it. What anyone else chooses to look at or not look at is their own business, as far as I'm concerned, as are their reasons for doing so.
I can also understand why his family might want people to see it at this point, although I suspect that in time they may come to wish they had the power to turn it off.
Mark,
So your response to me (filter you out) and to any other critique (that you don't have to click the link) is "You don't have to look."? That's a bit weak sauce.
You've posted a video of a man dying to be gaped at by the curious, surrounded by posted about modding your gadgets and curios about furries. If your only reply to that is "Well, you don't have to look" I think that speaks volumes about your character.
And I don't need an RSS to see your name at the top of an article and skip it, thanks.
Nc f y t mk tht jdgmnt fr vryn. Bt n, wldn't. Ppl shld lrdy b trgd by th dth f ths pr mn, s ths flm gs t t ths wh nd t wtch hm d bfr flng tht sns f trg? Tht nd ths wh jst wnt t wtch mn d.
Yh, 'd rthr my fmly ddn't hv t dl wth th ddtnl pn f my dth bng shwn n th ntrnt...whr t wll b shwn rptdly ntl t fnlly s rdcd t blg snd-bt r "hmrs" flsh mv n Nwgrnds.cm
Ceronomus: I happen tp think it's important for people to actually watch the video to make up their own mind about what actually happened. Calling it a "snuff film" is wrong and disgusting.
You obviously disagree with my decision to link to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's video of the incident, but instead of offering a cogent argument explaining why you disagree, you chose to mislabel the video as a "snuff film" and call me names. I don't know what the purpose of those insults were, because they certainly don't add to this otherwise fascinating discussion. I have read many interesting comments in this thread, but yours wasn't one of them.
Boing Boing is advertising sponsored, as are millions of other Web sites. Your assertion that I posted this video to "drive ad clicks" is wrong and insulting.
It wouldn't bother me in the least if you made good on your threat to stop reading Boing Boing. In fact, it would please me to no end to have you leave for good. Your behavior here is deplorable.
Garret: Your assumption that my purpose for posting this was that the video be "gaped at by the curious" is completely wrong.
Do you think this conversation thread has been interesting? I think it has been very interesting. The only comments I don't think are interesting are the ones by you and Ceronomus who make the false and ugly claim that I posted this for entertainment value.
Ceronomus, I do agree with you up to a point. We shouldn't see death on the news and usually don't need to. But there's a reason for that: it's disrespectful to the dead. This case is a rare exception where showing the images actually helps to restore respect for the dead rather than diminish it.
The only other reason for not showing images of death on the news (on those rare occasions when they are important and newsworthy) is that it is unpleasant or "distasteful". I think this argument is despicable. Someone who reasons like this puts their own mild comfort ahead of someone else's awful suffering.
Ceronomus: you say people should already be outraged enough that they don't need to see the video? Now that is just dumb. Okay, that is a bit harsh. But it is lazy.
Every single article I have read on the incident has been extremely vague about the specific details and chain of events. Perhaps once you reach your "outrage threshold" your intellectual curiosity magically evaporates. Mine does not. Seeing the video really helped me to understand the level of the guy's behavior and to adjust or verify my previous knowledge and conclusions.
I am certainly not making any judgments for everyone, but you seem to be. I am stating that there may be a legitimate desire/purpose to view this distribute/view the video outside of the prurient. You seem to be the one that wishes to enforce their judgment on every single other reader of boingboing.
One of the "wonderful" things about the internet is the wide availability of primary source material so that everyone can make informed judgments on their own without filtering from official sources.
Don't take that away from me, bro.
Mark,
I do think it's interesting, that rather than addressing your responsibility as an editor for posting a video showing the painful death of a man you're simply calling those calling your to account "insulting" and our comments "ugly". Anyone who calls your conduct into question should just "go away" because they're "deplorable". That's bordering on childish.
Why post this video on BB? Is it to further the debate on tasering as a valid means of subduing people? Does this man's family and friends need to know that the jaded eyes of people surfing some blog have watched the last horrible moments of their loved one? You've simply exposed this sad and ugly event to a wider audience.
Feel free to simply write me off as insulting you, hating on you or being a troll. I think a number of your posting demonstrate a real lack of empathy and compassion.
Hi All,
I want to set up a website for this to accept donations for his mother/charity and provide a forum.
I'm from Vancouver. As a Canadian I know many people are shocked by this. We like to see ourselves as a welcoming nation and this deeply disturbs me.
Fault in his death aside, this is a tragedy. Lets do something to make sure people learn that tazers are deadly weapons, to give Dziekanski's death some meaning, and his mother some solace.
I've never done anything like this before.
If you can help out in any aspect of this please email me at MemoryOfDziekanski@gmail.com. (I'm not sure what the best host would be, how to set up a charitable fund - paypal(?))
Dziekanski.com is already taken; I don't know if someone is already on this.
Thank you.
How hard would it have been to find out which language this man spoke and fetched a translator?
In the meantime put a sandwich and a cup of coffee on a tray and hold it up against the window for him to see,
Amazing how an inkling of kindness can change a situation
Violet
Ceronomus: On the assumption (backed up by his own words and the resulting discourse) that Mark did not post the video for the *purpose* of entertainment, it does not meet the definition of a snuff film that you offered.
I didn't watch it though, and don't want to. The conversation was enough.
For those bursting flames to Mark or Boing Boing.
I live in Poland where the whole story caused major concern across the country. The video itself was shown on the main evening TV news blocks and there was no complains about the broadcasts. I guess it wasn't considered that brutal by anyone but shed light on the case comparing to the first news a month ago, which was about his death without any footage, just solely witch the statement from the Vancouver Police about his aggressive behavior.
The guy was violent, unpredictable -- and there is really no argument here that he was neither violent not unpredictable, as he was throwing things around and brandishing furniture -- unable to communicate with those around him and avoidant of the cops. And in an airport. 20 years ago, he'd have been shot in the head with a hollow-point bullet, the inquest would have taken a week, and we'd never have heard another word.
I don't think the cops can be faulted here. Yes, this man's death is unfortunate. Yes, it's unjust. But life ain't just.
Some of the questions and comments bewilder me, to be honest. Like: why wasn't an interpreter brought in? Well, for one thing, nobody in that room knew what language he was speaking. They were all saying that it was Russian, when it was in fact Polish. And then how many fluent Polish/English bilingual speakers are there in Vancouver? A few hundred, maybe? How many work as freelance translators? How many of them would be willing to be on-call? And then how many of them would be willing to accept the potential liability commuicating with a violent and unpredictable man?
As for the police: how are the police supposed to deal with a violent, unpredictable man? Swarm him and risk injury? or deal with him from a distance and minimze the chance of injury both to themselves and to the suspect? That's exactly what they did: minimized the chance of injury. Unfortunately, the dice came up snake eyes.
The idea that this video "vindicates" the RCMP's "slander" is laughable at best and filled with an agenda at worst.
Me, I have no agenda: I don't trust the cops. My gut always tells me that they're bullies with too much power. But they did exactlyt he right thing here, and the video, IMHO, proves it.
Tensegrity:
One of the "wonderful" things about the internet is the wide availability of primary source material so that everyone can make informed judgments on their own without filtering from official sources.
Don't take that away from me, bro.
Just out of curiousity, now that you've seen that video, what are you going to do about it?
Are you writing a letter to the RCMP? Are you going to join Copwatch or even join your local police/community organization and become active in building better relationships between those who police your town and those who live in it? What has being exposed to that video done to better you or cause you to better the world?
I'm not going to assume you'd do nothing. I'd hope you do something. I'd even challenge you to do so.
As for your "right", you're absolutely correct. No government should stop you form viewing that. I'd put my money where my mouth is and donate to your legal fund if you were arrested for viewing it. It's not the legal right to view that scene that I'd call into question, t's th jdgmnt f ppl wh'd pplrz t nd dssmnt t, spclly n sch csl frm s ths. t's nt s f ths ws scrnd fr MPs r hstd n st by th mn's fmly cllng fr jstc, t's n blg whr y cn "fvrt!" t r skp dwn nd rd bt Wrhmmr bldngs.
You have every right to view it, nd hv vry rght t qstn yr dsr nd ntrst n dng s.
Violet: "In the meantime put a sandwich and a cup of coffee on a tray and hold it up against the window for him to see."
You know, I have a feeling this would have done the trick.
Well. I guess reaching a Polish/English interpreter wasn't that hard at the moment.
According to Polish news reports Mr. Dziekański's mother was waiting for him outside the gate all the time (10 hours) and was unable to get inside despite requests to let her inside because her son's plane should have already arrived.
Therefore there must have been some other than overreaction of security issues at the airport, which we in Poland are looking forward to be investigated.
Ceronomus wrote:
So yes Mark, a snuff film, and you are its purveyor. Congrats!
Ceronomus, a "snuff film" is a film where the person was killed specifically for the purpose of making a film that would entertain people who get off on seeing death. There have been no documented examples of a genuine snuff film in history. See The Straight Dope: Is there such a thing as a snuff film?
incidentally, those officers were offered honorary US citizenship.
Not every film in which someone dies is a "snuff film." Look it up, people.
Next, let me get this straight: the video clip is too awful for decent people to watch, but reporting the event is sensationalism?
Right.
NoneSuch, I'm really tired of your tough-guy routine about how victims of police overreaction had it coming, and the rest of us are just indulging pet peeves. First, you don't know any more than the rest of us. You certainly don't know enough to justify the incidence of your lecturing the rest of us on what really happened. Second, the riff about why others hold the beliefs they do is an ad hominem argument. Third, I've known some genuine tough guys in my time, and none of them ever talked like you do.
These are my visceral responses to the video, for those of you who would rather not watch it:
-holy bajeesus, that is one hulking man. Breathing heavily.. Barricading? Brandishing furniture?
-oh, throwing monitors.
-double holy BAJEEBUS, those RCMP officers are fricking GARGANTUAN. Why are they moving so, well, aggressively?
-oh, good, looks like they have it all under control (they are standing in a semi-circle around him, his back against the counter)
-then he gets tasered. Good lord that looks painful.
-they seem to be on him for an awful long time.
There is no real indication as to WHY he was tasered. He seemed to be under control. They outnumbered him. He appeared reasonable as soon as they arrive (he didn't throw a punch or anything).
This brings up a few questions, for me, anyways:
1) Why didn't they get him down to the ground with large hand signals?
2) Why didn't they use pepper spray, if they really though he needed to be subdued? Why are tasers used in lieu of pepper spray?
I am a Canadian who has been following this incident since the news broke. It is a very, very good thing that the video has been released, and I have absolutely no intention of watching it.
The RCMP have a history of killing innocent people and giving the killers the kid-glove treatment. This poor man is not the first person killed by the RCMP in British Columbia in the past few years--there was a mill worker named Ian Bush killed in RCMP custody a while back, and the RCMP actually gave the killer a list of questions they were going to ask him before interrogating him. A blood spatter expert testified at the coroners' inquest that Ian Bush could not have possibly been in the position the killer claimed when he was shot.
No charges have been laid, nor ever will be.
All of this has made me an advocate of the Surveillance Society. For the Organs of the State.
All parts of every police station where any prisoner might ever be present--including the washrooms--should be under constant video surveillance. All police constables should be equipped with wearable video recorders. We could pay for them by cutting the taser budget.
If the police object to this, we can simply ask them, "If you have nothing to hide, why does it bother you?"
In a free and open society the police must be under citizen control, and to control them the citizens must know what they are doing. As a Canadian citizen I am very happy that the RCMP are still sufficiently subject to public scrutiny that they were forced to return this video to the person who took it (it was seized with a promise to return it which was not honoured until the matter became a public embarrassment.)
But police forces, like governments, like fire, as someone who knew it well once said, are powerful tools and dangerous masters. Every police constable should feel watched all the time. Then they will be safe to do their jobs, and we will be safe from them.
In a modern democracy that we may never get to see, all interactions between detained members of the public and the police should be filmed and made public.
This would be closer to the transperency politicians like to talk about. After all the police is here to protect the public, they are public servants , AREN'T THEY?
I hope the taser-happy cop gets maximum sentence for manslaughter, and tasers are classified as lethal weapons.
They needed a taser to restrain one man who could not even run away? If they were properly trained instead of being hired thugs more akin to Robocops than human beings, they would have easily handled him.
According to Polish news reports Mr. Dziekański's mother was waiting for him outside the gate all the time (10 hours)
News reports that are incorrect; she drove back to Kamloops and was away from the airport for the 6 hours before his death.
Well, the latest Polish news (http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/Wiadomosci/1,80269,4677214.html btw. also showing the footage) now state that the mother wasn't waiting for him for the whole 10 hours because she was misinformed that he hasn't arrived by the plane.
The inquest results are also known and say that the man lost consciousness and was unable to regain it after the tase and overpower by the policemen.
Moreover the Polish ambassador stated Polish counsulate has a interpreter available 24 hours a day.
RE: the use of Tasers vs. something else...
It's just unclear what effects Tasers have. We can argue over their relative merits and sift through the scarce data out there -- a lot of it coming from the company itself -- and not really end up anywhere. But the recent uptick in media coverage, and the subsequent storm of blogospheric rage that follows each report, is in one way or another significant. We're seeing police forces all over the place relying on the supposed safety of Tasers and employing them in situations where the use of painful force is unwarranted -- the high-douchebaggery of Don't Taze Me, Bro did not require such a forceful response, nor did the student at UCLA last year, to name just a couple. Nor is the destruction of property at the same criminal level as potentially harming another individual.
The problem isn't necessarily with the Tasers themselves, but with the way police forces have reorganized their response tactics around this unproven technology, sometimes with horrific results, as with Mr. Dziekanski (and possibly the other suspect who died in Montreal that same week, after being Tasered). I fully understand the danger many police officers face in their daily work, and I respect what they do. But the "any weapon we've got" mentality is so short-sighted, so dangerous to society as a whole if those weapons are used irrationally and carelessly, even if just one person dies. If this continues, don't be surprised if in 10 years grandma jaywalkers are Tasered for "non-compliance."
Thank you, Garrett for making me a better person. Your comment has redoubled my efforts to monkeywrench the new world order. Give yourself a pat on the back. And you are free to assume or challenge whatever you want about me, I am going to assume that you are not as self-righteous in person as you come across on this forum. But if you really intend to conduct yourself online by judging not merely the words but the personal and moral worth, context, and intent of every single person you encounter, then good luck to you with that. Let us know how it works out for you.
And I don't know how long you have been reading boingboing, but in addition to lolcats BB consistently deals with civil liberties issues in a serious and principled manner, especially where it crosses over with technology issues. Maybe that is your cup of tea. Perhaps you can convince Mark, Cory, et al to change their personal and intellectual interests to match yours. Again, good luck with that.
Teresa:
Next, let me get this straight: the video clip is too awful for decent people to watch, but reporting the event is sensationalism?
If you're talking about posting the video link on BB I'd counter saying that posting that a link is not "reporting". Any more so than handing an article clipping to a friend is reporting.
The question, in my mind, is could the CBC have reported on the story without that tape? The answer to me is yes. That would have been a more responsible and humane thing to do than posting the video of a man's death.
Does the public interest in this story outweigh the right of the family to have privacy or the right of the man to have dignity? I just don't think so.
Just a few things from "THe Verdict" last night on CTV that may be worth mentioning here. Most of these points have been brought up by others here already. The police in this case tasered after only 24 seconds of viewing the 'suspect'. They NEVER cleared the area before taking him down. They yelled orders at him in English (AFTER they had been told that he spoke NO english). They never (on tape, or in records) talked to anyone in the area BEFORE tasering him (hence, they didn't know anything about why he was behaving as he was). The people that the mother had asked about trying to find her son didn't seem to do anything either...he was less than 100 feet away the whole time...behind closed doors. They also approached confrontationally. Had they walked in with their hands in the air and off to the side, in a 'what's wrong' kind of way, this WHOLE thing could have been avoided. They didn't need to KILL her son...which they did. I say that as a fact, due to the rules laid out regarding the taser, and it's after effects. As soon as the man was down, they jumped him, knees to the neck and back, which restricts airflow. After a taser hit, you have to regain breathing control, by breathing faster and deeper. This is why the manual says (as stated by RCMP trainers) that there is a minimum time from tasering to "major restraint"...since most of the time one hit and cuffs are enough. Even if you had no breathing problems whatsoever, 600lbs of cop on top of you can quickly suppress your breathing.
I'm appalled. Simply APPALLED that someone (Muppets) would drag Robocop's name through the mud. Let's leave him out of it. Now, if you want to make disparaging remarks about the ED-209, feel free.
More on topic, I have to agree Tom, I can't think of a single reason why 'official police business' can't be under video surveillance at all times (besides the cost, of course). I'm not one to think that police are jack-booted thugs, but I think group-think goes a long way when dealing with men and women, all bonded by esprit-de-corps, who are expected to deal with a physical threat.
Tensegrity:
It's interesting that I took the time to actually put this in it's own seperate line in the hopes of emphasis.
"I'm not going to assume you'd do nothing. I'd hope you do something. I'd even challenge you to do so."
I do hope you do something positive with what you've seen. Sincerely. There's no sarcasm here, no eye-rolling, no hate. I hope you do something useful and constructive after watching a video of a man tasered to death by law enforcement. Simply ingesting material and not responding to it, especially graphic and vile material, is, at best, apathetic.
I don't judge your personal and moral character by anything except your words here. What you write does form an impression. I don't know you in your walking around life, I don't know your name or location or affiliation. I don't even know if your snarked response was genuine or simply a laugh. I know what you wrote and that is to what I respond.
I think many of the posts on BB are informative, interesting and amusing. It's interesting that when I raise an objection to one I'm simply told to shove off.
CS gas used in confined spaces can backfire on the cop, whereas a taser affects only the (usually unarmed) victim.
Someone wrote that these RCMP cops were offered honorary citizenship in the US?????
$£%**^$%***$@@££!@&$£%^@****£$%!
If this is true, it just speaks volumes of the adolescent fascist character of the US gov.
I'm sure the cops will get work with Blackwater, no problem. Killers of foreigners welcome !
Garett, to put it bluntly, i doubt anyone here gives a **** about judgments of other posters' character.
Yes, boingboing may be a sold-out meta-modern nightmare, where people dying appear next to lame Mickey Mouse fetishism, but that's the mix, and personally I'd like to see more serious topics such as this and less furries and geekiness pretty plz !
I can't believe how many retards are getting huffy and calling this a snuff film...
uhhhgg.
Maybe if this was a cartoon and the cops were using steampunk tasers it would be ok.
seriously, you don't even want to know what they would have done to him if they found out he wasn't carrying a student ID.
The casual way that the police zapped the poor guy indicates more about how easily they resort to excessive force than is immediately apparent.
He was unarmed, his hands were at his sides, and he was not being violent. They spoke to him for a few seconds, then zapped him - killing him in this case. This suggests 2 things:
1. Police zap people all the time, with little pretext. None of them even looked nervous, yet they zapped him. Perhaps it is less work to electrocute people.
2. It is probably true that only a small minority of zapped people actually die. Given how many (in hard numbers) of people have been dying as a result of tazers, that suggests that a lot of people get zapped every day, just not in front of a camera.
And if police who are working at a major international airport haven't figured out how to deal with someone who does not speak English, they have some serious oversights in their protocols.
Or maybe they don't have any gaps, and the protocol is to electrocute them.
I'm definitely not watching this. I want my reality handspun and pre-interrupted. Government approved. Give me simple sound-bites and colorful graphics; something disturbing enough to make me feel fortunate it’s not me, but n