Polish immigrant unable to communicate in English is tasered to death in Vancouver

After left languishing at the Vancouver International Airport for more than 10 hours, unable to communicate with anyone, a Polish man was tasered to death by the Canadian RCMP in just 24 seconds.

Robert Dziekanski was trying to immigrate to Canada with the help of his mother Zofa Cisowski, who saved her life savings to bring her son to Canada. After five hours of air travel, instead of having a happy meeting with his mother, he was tasered to death by the RCMP. Dziekanski's journey began in Poland at about 3 a.m. The 40-year-old construction worker, who has never left Poland before, was immigrating to Canada to join his mother, Zofa, Cisowski, 61, who lives in Kamloops, BC. They had planned to meet at the baggage carousel in the international terminal at YVR airport. The baggage area was close to Canada Customs and Immigration office. Dziekanski arrived at the Vancouver airport at 3 p.m. on Sunday, October 14th. According to Zofa’s lawyer, Walter Kosteckyj, Dziekanski cleared customs in an ordinary fashion without any troubles and had to see a second customs official because he was unable to speak English. Then began the nightmare for Robert, as nobody guided him, leaving him stranded for 10 hours. His mother tried desperately to reach her son, but the airport authorities couldn't locate him. She waited nearly six hours searching for him outside, while her son looked for his mother inside. Unable to find him, she left the airport and received a message that her son had been found. By the time she returned to the airport to meet her son, the RCMP had already killed him with a taser. According to reports, there is video evidence showing the RCMP came to the airport at 1:28 a.m., and then called in to say they had tasered someone. The video shows RCMP officials approaching Robert and 24 seconds later, they turned a taser on him. After tasering him, RCMP officials reportedly waited 12 minutes before calling medics for help. By that time, Robert Dziekanski was dead. According to the Globe and Mail, the family's lawyer saw the video evidence and said:

"I would describe it as something that will be shown to police academies around North America as not the way to intervene in this kind of situation."

Police say Dziekanski was in an agitated state, so RCMP officials tasered him to handcuff him. As the Globe reports, Ms. Cisowski said:

I've lost my only family, …I studied English during the day and I saved money to get my son to Canada."

Mr. Dziekanski arrived with three bags, two of which were filled with geography books. The family's lawyer said airport bureaucracy is to be blamed, as both the mother and son were only 100 feet apart, separated by a glass door. He said it is amazing that an airport, which handles 17 million visitors per year, didn’t have anyone to help them.