When I first heard that a man was tasered to death in an Airport in Vancouver, I didn’t pay much attention. Maybe it was the steady flow of depressing news that filters ones consciousness on a daily basis, but for some reason the story didn’t shock my system. After all, police have shot and killed many innocent people before. And you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that Tasers are lethal.
But it was when the full story emerged that I became not only shocked, but saddened and ashamed. How had we, as so called peaceful Canadians let our RCMP force become so violent? I know that airports are a high security area. There are a few places that should never be vulnerable, and an airport definitely falls into that category. But when the video emerged, I didn’t see a threatening villain, but a frusterated Polish immigrant who had been asking for the officers help in a non-violent fashion, when he was tasered. Two things stuck out in my mind.
1. The man (Robert Dziekanski) was unarmed
2. He didn’t speak English
In the video, one of the RCMP officers asks excitedly, “Should I taser him???”.
It was as if the officer was playing a video game.
I did not see any of the officers try to figure out “why” he was upset. I didn’t see any of the officers trying to figure out how to communicate with him in his native tongue. I did not see them try to help him at all.
It seemed that the officers were amateur, freaked out and acted cowardly by using the taser in the first 25 sec of being in the mans presence.
People talk a lot about investigating what happened, punishing the officers or debating whether tasers should be used. But I hope that this terrible occurrence will also open up a larger discussion on race and stereotype in our country, and how we as humans relate to one another.
For Maggie
0 comments:
Post a Comment