"Combative behaviour"

When I was 25, I was driving my brand new Ford F-150 truck on Fairbanks Street in downtown Anchorage and pulled-up to a stop sign before crossing East 6th Avenue. A woman, appearing slightly inebriated, was staggering across the street ahead of me, so I stopped short, waited until she was safely gone, pulled up to the stop sign, looked for oncoming traffic (which wasn't heavy or that far away) and darted quickly across to my intended turn on East 5th Avenue.

Almost immediately after crossing, I was assaulted by a set of red and blue lights, accosted by an unfriendly and determined Anchorage Police officer and issued a ticket for "failure to stop" and "unsafe crossing" at an intersection.

When I asked the policeman why he thought my crossing was unsafe or why he thought I hadn't stopped, he said he saw me move through the intersection in an unsafe manner..

That was a lie, of course, and I contested the ticket.

When my court date arrived, I testified as to my stop and proximity and the situation, and then the officer was questioned by the presiding magistrate as to his field of view of my position. He said he was in the left lane on the one-way street and had a clear view of my actions.

Every word out of his mouth was a flat-out lie. Not one word of his testimony was true.

It was then that I learned an important life lesson: police officers won't hesitate to lie to protect their actions, no matter the truth or how it may affect the disposition of justice.

A few years later, in law school, I learned to my horror that the Supreme Court agreed with that policy and stated unequivocably that not only can police lie, but do so with impugnity.

-------------------------------------

Flash forward to yesterday and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and the case of Robert Dziekanski. (pronounced: ja KAN ski)

Dziekanski was a Polish immigrant, fresh off a grueling 10-hour flight arriving in Vancouver International (YVR) and completely new to the new world he was entering and unfamiliar with the English language spoken here.

He was tired, confused and disoriented and after an hour of getting told he was in the wrong area and run-around -- and not understanding what the people pushing him around were saying -- he got distressed and unruly.

He had been wandering the airport for hours and became agitated after a series of communications breakdowns kept him in a controlled area. CBC News, 23 Feb 2009

RCMP "Mounties" stationed at YPR were called and when they confronted Dziekanski, they assessed him as a threat, "tasered" him FIVE TIMES and he died.

Dziekanski died Oct. 14, 2007 after getting hit five times with shots from the Taser gun. He fell screaming in anguish to the ground and the officers piled on top of him. Within seconds, he had stopped breathing.

The inquiry had heard earlier testimony from firefighters who later attended the scene that the RCMP officers appeared to do nothing to help the man. Toronto Star, 23 Feb 2009

The case of tasering deaths has gotten plenty of attention in Canada since then and Robert's family has been seeking justice in what they consider his cruel and unnecessary death.

The RCMP, not surprisingly, has been defensive and unwilling to talk about the incident . . . until now. Yesterday, the world heard testimony from the first of the four officers involved in the tasering incident as he spoke publicly for the first time in a public inquiry. Constable Gerry Rundel didn't do any of the tasering but was there at the time and spoke about what he saw.

He probably wishes, now, he hadn't.

Speaking under oath, Rundel said that when he first saw the victim, Robert

Dziekanski was unkempt, agitated and sweating.

Rundel said from experience he had seen that kind of condition before.

"He appeared to not be behaving like a normal person would behave. It was all part of my observation formed by opinion."

Rundel said the initial call stated that there was an intoxicated male in the international arrivals area and a follow-up dispatch stated that the man was throwing luggage around. Toronto Star, 23 Feb 2009

That, as countless viewers of video footage of the incident have seen, was not the case. Dziekanski had picked up a keyboard and small folding table, but he wasn't throwing furniture and he wasn't combative; he was, quite simply, trying to get away from, and avoid an incident with, the four policemen.

That alone would begin to plant seeds of doubt as to Rundel's testimony... but then what the Constable said next was truly astounding.

He said he became "fearful for his safety" because Dziekanski put his hands in the air and moved away.

Imagine! Throwing up his hands and moving away!
The threat that might have posed is just unimaginable!
Moving away with his HANDS RAISED!
A threat!

Seriously!

When Dziekanski bent down and pointed toward his luggage, Rundel said, the officer in charge, Cpl. Monty Robinson, yelled a stern "No" and motioned for Dziekanski to stop. Dziekanski complied with the order, Rundel said.

He said Dziekanski then turned around, lifted his hands in the air and started to walk away.

Referring frequently to his training, Rundel testified that the Taser is a legitimate response to someone who's resistant. But inquiry lawyer Patrick McGowan had trouble understanding how Dziekanski had been resistant.

"What is the command that he disobeyed?" McGowan asked.

Rundel sat in silence for more than 20 seconds before telling the inquiry that Dziekanski disobeyed a command in English in an indirect way.

"He disobeyed a direction from Cpl. Robinson by flipping up his hands, turning around and leaving — that became resistant behaviour," Rundel said.

"My observation of that is saying, 'To hell with you guys, I'm out of here.' That's non-compliant, and his behaviour then became resistant." CBC News 23 Feb 2009 (*Note: Dziekanski didn't KNOW English!)

The Constable then went on to describe this behavior as "combative."

Combative! I'm serious!
Peacefully walking away with your hands raised is "combative!"
Who knew!?!

But, as those late-night television commercials say: wait, there's more!

When those videos of the incident are viewed in detail, it appears Dziekanski didn't raise his hands in a "combative" stance until AFTER he had been tasered for the first of five times, reports CBC Television reports of the inquiry.

Even Gerry Rundel had to pause and reconsider his earlier testimony.
He then changed his story a bit.

Meanwhile, all this viewing and reviewing of the death of her son caused Robert's mother to flee the hearing room in tears.... and it only reconfirms my suspicion that police rarely tell the truth.

The evasive testimony and conflicts with what evidence exists on videos (which, by the way, the RCMP refused to return to the original owner for months!) throws serious doubt on the innocence of the officers involved.

The Crown has declined any prosecution of the four, however. They're gonna walk. Police, as I see it, are simply criminals in uniform and it's worse -- much, much worse -- if you arrive in North America and don't speak English.

Let this be a lesson to you. You cannot legally lie to an officer of the law up here, but they can -- and will -- kill you and lie through their teeth to cover it up and it's all quite legal for them.

Even in Canada.

PS:
Original reports by the RCMP stated that Dziekanski was only tasered twice.
We now know it was five times and never did the police recognize that discrepancy until proof was given to the contrary.
The upshot: police lie, simple as that.