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Polish Community Seeks Answers in Man's Death After Taser Use at Vancouver Airport

Posted on: Friday, 26 October 2007, 00:00 CDT

By Stephanie Levitz, THE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER - Vancouver's Polish community is demanding answers in the death of a man at Vancouver International Airport after he was zapped by a Taser gun in a confrontation with police.

About 100 people gathered at the Polish Community Centre on Thursday to express their outrage and share similar stories of frustration about the airport and immigration procedures.

One woman called the police "dogs" for the way they dealt with Robert Dziekanski after the 40-year-old man emerged in violent rage from a secure area at the airport almost 10 hours after his flight had arrived on Oct. 13.

"He was an innocent man, just wanting to come and live with his mother," said the woman, who refused to give her name.

"Shame on the government, shame on the police."

Both the Polish consul general and the president of the Canadian Polish Congress urged airport officials to make better services available to newly arrived immigrants and their families.

"It seems from the initial reports that there was minimal to no assistance provided for Mr. Dziekanski by authorities and this shocks and disappoints us greatly," said Ludwik Tokarczuk, the congress president.

"It seems like this situation could have easily been avoided."

The big yellow question marks dotting Vancouver International Airport's arrival terminal neatly symbolize the mystery surrounding Dziekanski's last hours.

The question marks point to places where wayward travellers can get assistance upon arriving in Canada.

But for the confused 40-year-old who spoke no English, and for his frail mother desperately searching for him, those yellow marks were only beacons of frustration.

Zofia Cisowski waited seven hours for her son on Oct. 13 and was told repeatedly that no one could help her - so she returned home to Kamloops, B.C., where a phone message brought her back to Vancouver to learn the news of his death.

"They were within 150 to 200 feet of each other for a period of no less than five hours," said Walter Kosteckyj, Cisowski's lawyer.

"There was no effective communication available to her to be able to speak to him or get a message through."

A police investigation underway has sealed the lips of airport and border officials.

They refuse to answer questions about how a man could spent upwards of 10 hours in a relatively secure section of the airport without attracting the attention of authorities until minutes before his death.

Kosteckyj said the message Cisowski finally received from customs officials at 11:30 p.m. that night was that Dziekanski had been found in the baggage carousel area.

But it appears that it wasn't until two hours after that he left that secure area and moved into an international arrivals hall, furious and according to witnesses throwing a computer and brandishing a stapler.

Police were called and bystander video shot of the ensuing confrontation apparently shows Dziekanski being shot with a Taser twice.

He died shortly after. A coroner's inquest has been called and police are also conducting an investigation.

In conversation with airport staff, it becomes clear that what should have been a straightforward arrival process for Dziekanski went terribly awry.

As a new immigrant, he would have met first with border officials who had the option of referring him to immigration authorities.

A customs official at the airport said wait times for the processing of new immigrants currently peak at around three hours.

The fact he spoke no English should not have posed a problem because language services are available around the clock, said Canadian Border Services spokeswoman Paula Shore, who refused to answer any specific questions about the Dziekanski case.

Even if no translator was on staff that night, officials at the airport said border officials can communicate with passengers' friends and family waiting in the terminal if a problem arises or translation is needed.

However, waiting family members can't find out if their loved ones are held up at the border, as customs officials outside the secure area don't communicate that information, one officer said Thursday.

One man attending the news conference said when his wife arrived in Canada, he repeatedly asked immigration officials if they knew what happened to her and offered his phone number in case translation was needed.

"For three hours she was there in immigration and no one told me," said Andrew Stasiak, his voice breaking.

"She was shocked. She was scared."

Dziekanski's mother has said she asked airport officials to page her son, which they did, but she complained he wouldn't have understood the page because it was in English and he only spoke Polish.

He likely wouldn't have heard it anyway - pages from the arrivals area at the airport cannot be heard inside the secure customs area where her son had been waiting.

So that would leave her son inside the arrivals area, and she outside, with no way for them to communicate.

The arrivals hall is fairly straightforward - passengers pass through customs and immigration, pick up their luggage and then funnel through a glass-enclosed greeting area.

It's filled with airline information desks, visitor information kiosks and security guards.

Dziekanski should have cleared immigration and walked into that area, where he would have easily been spotted by his mother.

But for unknown reasons, he remained inside the baggage claim area for hours.

Both Vancouver airport officials and border services say they're working in co-operation with the RCMP in their investigation.

The Polish community has set up a trust fund to cover Cisowski's legal costs at the Valley First Credit Union.

Source: Canadian Press

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