Monday, March 02, 2009

TN! of the week: RCMP Constable Kwesi Millington:

Plenty of reasons why Kwesi Millington is the receiver of the Taser-Nazi of the Week nomination.

The most obvious ones:

1. "A bulletproof vest, handgun, baton and pepper spray were not enough to quell the fear RCMP Constable Kwesi Millington says he felt when confronted by Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski [who was holding a stapler] during a fatal October 2007 incident at Vancouver airport."

2.Without any warning Constable Kwesi Millington fired the taser at Robert Dziekanski, who, according to a scared Kwesi Millington, was making a threating gesture with a stapler toward one of the other three officers.

3. As a reaction to this "fluid" situation Kwesi did not taser Dziekanski once, not twice, no, Kwesi tasered "the subject" another four times AFTER it had fallen down on the floor from the excruciating pain from the first taser deployment.

4. Throughout the Braidwood hearing Mr. Millington's initial explanation continuously contradicted the Pritchard video, which seems nothing short of a cover up. The (a) yelling of Dziekanski, the (b) raising high of the stapler, (c) not functioning of the taser, (d) number of deployments of the taser, (e) even the intensions of Mr. Dziekanski (why Dziekanski walked to his luggage when asked for his passport and identification), they were all proven wrong by the video or other evidence presented at he inquiry.

What was it that Abraham Lincoln had to say about long strings of lies and cover-ups?

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Kwesi, you are the Taser-Nazi of the Week.

Congratulations!

LINKS
- Globe and Mail: "He was carrying a weapon and all four of us were only in our underwear"
- Dawg's Blawg: Braidwood to show us the obvious: the RCMP defeated by a single amateur video

8 comments:

Jax2aM said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Erik said...

How is that? I don't think race has much (if any) to do with Kwesi's behaviour.

Trigger happy? Yes!
The wrong tool given the circumstances? Sure!
Irresponsible use of force? Of course!

The abusive use of force combined with inaction to keep Dziekanski alive (RCMP officers refused to remove the hand-cuffs, they neglected to use CPR, and they neglected to inform the ambulance health unit about his deteriorating condition) should mount to a criminal offence.

But racism, really?

Justine said...

talking about racism... it's Dziekanski who is the victim here..
That is so pathetic, that he thought someone could survive after being tased 5 times in a row !!! What a pathetic beast !!! Let's do the same to him at least once and let him know how it feels !!!!

Justine said...

I wonder what would happen if it was the other way round - Canadian being killed this way in airport in Poland ??? Completely different story ha ??? Yeah well...

Justine said...

no interpretours on the airport in Canada ???? wtf ???? there's plenty of Polish in Vancouver who speak English and could fill the vacancy !!!

Erik said...

Hi Justine, I'm as angry about this as you are, but I don't think anger will solve any of the bigger issues.

The problem is (and remains, even after Braidwood) that RCMP are carrying taser weapons.

The Braidwood recommendations will (once they are implemented) help, but nothing would have been better to curb the taser-creep than when this torturous elictric schock gun would have been outlawed.

How wonderful it would have been if "Taser Nazi of the Week" could have closed shop?

Excited-Delirium.com said...

Millington is suing CBC for libel.

Yeah, I know => LOL.

Erik said...

Good for him! He hasn't got anything to loose, so why not?

Perhaps he can sue Taser and the RCMP too while he's at it? And what about Kwesi's mother? Can she not be found guilty in some way or manner?

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