YVR KILLING -Waldo to the rescue?
"Recent allegations of fraudulent statements and a planned cover-up are leading to loud calls for a new look at the December decision by the B.C. Crown counsel's office to clear the four RCMP officers involved in the tragic encounter with Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski."
Thus begins Gary Mason's latest on the YVR killing.
Several commenters have kvetched about my use of the word 'murder,''in this regard.
Murder may be a legal word with clear delineations about intentions, but it is also a good old-fashioned English word for what often happens when two or more people collide and one or more end up dead.
This is exactly such a case.
Others have kvetched that I have called the police liars in this story.
But read all the evidence and all the reporting and you must only conclude that sworn evidence given IS FALSE.
Here is Mason's column in its entirety.
Every reporter covering this story has told us the same basics. The RCMP said that certain things happened. As a result the Crown declined to press charges.
But those things the RCMP said happened, DID NOT HAPPEN.
What's the problem kvetchers?
Be concerned less with fighting with me than with police investigating themselves and what that means for the kind of community in which you live.
Now, the truly scary part of this entire disgusting incident IN WHICH AN UTTERLY INNOCENT MAN WAS KILLED BY PEOPLE WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN HELPING HIM is that the possibility of bringing charges against these disgraces lies completely in the hands of that great arbiter of justice, Wally Opaque.
Lord, spare us.
4 comments:
There's always people throughout history who experience great ridicule while standing their ground, and then are found to be right in the end.
The RCMP are not above the law of the land, and it's ridiculous that they got a get-out-of-jail free card on this one. For an unexperienced officer to use the taser FIVE TIMES on a man who was no threat other than being an immigrant who was confused, hungry and agitated is the equivalent of a 14 year old killing a pedestrian while having a street race. Then again, we've seen how lenient those cases are treated too.
Carry on David...be the voice of reason on this one!
It will be interesting to see if *anyone* has the morals, perseverance and intestinal fortitude to press - and continue to press - for a re-opening of this disaster - the unnecessary and sad taking of a life. It is impossible to imagine the horror Robert Dziekanski felt when he was being ambushed....and killed.
June
David, it's good to see you've not
lost any of your vim, vigour and vitality! There'll be no Viagra or Cialis for you. Keep up the good work. Give 'em hell. These guys and Waffling Wally would NOT know the truth if it leapt up and hit them you know where.!
Martino wrote, "The RCMP is not above the law of the land..."
Well, sir, I am afraid that it is and the Dzienkanski case is illustrative. The standard cover-up strategy failed because,early on, BC Coroner's Service stated publicly that Pritchard's video could be returned to its owner. In the RCMP's disappointed words, that removed their only legal justification for keeping the original video tape. As recently demonstrated in North Vancouver, Houston and Prince George, the RCMP prefers that videos of members' actions be unavailable.
Evasion of the force's moral responsibility in this case fails only because the video tape is here for all to see. In the past, officialdom has been compliant, even helpful, to such evasion. Examine Stan Lowe's statements when he disclosed that the Crown would not lay charges in the swarming. That Crown decision was defective, made without expectation of intense scrutiny to follow. (Unhappily, their spokesman is the new BC Police Complaint's Commissioner.) Here is the Polish Embassy's reaction: “Reading the [Crown's] statement, it appears that the main reason for Mr. Dziekanski's death was his fear of flying, tiredness and lack of ability to communicate in English. Particularly disconcerting, though factually baseless, are repeated insinuations of alcohol abuse..."
Only the naive imagined that police testimony was always unimpeachable but few citizens suspected that the entire agency, including its management hierarchy, would work together to spin a self-serving story as in this case.
The RCMP fails the ethical tests put to it in recent times. Corruption and political interference are unacceptable elements of Canadian justice. Rot at the top of the RCMP has been apparent for some time. Shuffling the deck chairs is insufficient. They should be removed as a local policing agency in this region and replaced by a provincial police agency that is not managed by authorities who live 3,500 kilometers away.
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