RCMP monitored Dziekanski’s breathing and pulse till help arrived: Mountie

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This article was published 30/11/2007 (6511 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

VANCOUVER – Four police officers monitored Robert Dziekanski’s breathing and pulse after he was shot with a Taser and fell to the floor at Vancouver International Airport, an RCMP spokesman said Friday.

“Breathing and pulse and consciousness were present at that time,” said Cpl. Dale Carr, of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, which is investigating the Polish immigrant’s death on Oct.–.

“The officers were not just standing around Mr. Dziekanski while he lay deceased at their feet, waiting for emergency personnel to arrive.”

Accounts of Dziekanski’s confrontation with police and his final moments after being shot at least twice by a Taser-wielding officer have pointed out it took some time for medical help to reach the dying man. A nearby airport first-responder team was not summoned.

“It is important to let the community know that the officers, from what we’ve learned in the investigation, they did assist, they did monitor him,” Carr said in an interview.

“They were observing that he was breathing, they were observing that he had a pulse and they continued that after he was unconscious, right through the time that emergency medical personnel arrived.”

Carr said police struggled with Dziekanski on the ground, where he was handcuffed and lost consciousness moments later but continued to have a pulse and to breathe.

He said firefighters arrived first and asked police to remove Dziekanski’s handcuffs, but police did not do so because of safety concerns.

“Within minutes, the ambulance arrived and requested handcuffs be removed and officers reassessed (Dziekanski) and removed them,” he said.

Dziekanski, 40, had landed in Vancouver the afternoon before on a journey from Poland via Frankfurt, Germany, to join his mother, who lives in Kamloops, B.C.

He became agitated after languishing for hours in a secure arrivals area of the airport, missing a planned rendezvous with his mother, Zofia Cisowski.

Four RCMP officers responded to calls about Dziekanski, who spoke only Polish, flinging a chair at a glass partition, tossing a computer to the floor and barricading the exit into the reception area where his mother had waited for him for several hours.

Cisowski had driven four hours from Kamloops to meet the son she’d worked hard to bring to Canada, only to be told by airport staff he wasn’t there. In fact, Dziekanski was a few metres away the entire time and had been there for hours.

It was after Cisowski left to make the trek back to Kamloops that her only child lay writhing and howling on the floor in pain after police shot him with a Taser.

An autopsy did not reveal any evident cause of death but full results may not be disclosed until an inquest scheduled for next year.

A bystander’s video recording, which was seen around the world, shows Dziekanski collapsed and screaming on the floor with a Mountie kneeling on his shoulder and neck.

The video sparked international outrage and prompted eight investigations, including one by Polish prosecutors who want to find out if the RCMP officers exceeded their authority and unintentionally caused Dziekanski’s death.

Walter Kosteckyj, Cisowski’s lawyer, said the force is only releasing information now because of the huge public pressure it faces and because the city of Richmond, the site of the airport, has received Freedom of Information requests that would divulge more details.

“Why didn’t they release this information a month ago or two weeks ago or three weeks ago?” Kosteckyj said. “In other words, they’re chasing their tails again.”

Cynthia Lockrey, spokeswoman for the city of Richmond, said Friday the city has received two Freedom of Information requests about the Dziekanski incident.

The law prevents her from releasing the names of the applicants and what information they’re asking for, she said.

“I just find it curious the way that everything is going in this file, if you like,” said Kosteckyj, a former RCMP officer.

“I seems to be that until the press puts pressure on and the public demands answers, it’s only then that the information is forthcoming.”

“It disappoints me that the force’s image has been tainted.”

Kosteckyj said he also doesn’t understand why one of the officers, seen in the video recording, collapsed his expandable baton beside Dziekanski’s head when he was on the ground.

“That may have frightened him even more,” he said.

While the vast majority of Mounties are hard-working, Kosteckyj said, he questions their training and what would have led to an incident has received international attention.

“There were four members there and no one seemed to take the leadership role of sitting down and talking to Mr. Dziekanski,” he said.

The video shows a Mountie shooting Dziekanski with his Taser only seconds after first confronting him at the exit to the secure arrivals area.

Kosteckyj said that after Cisowski went back to the airport the next day, believing she would finally be greeting her son, police told her he had died but did not provide any details.

She learned about her son’s fate from news reports, Kosteckyj said, adding the woman who worked up to three jobs at a time for seven years while learning English to bring her son to Canada is now under psychiatric care.