TN! of the week: Helen Roberts, Federal Government Lawyer at the Braidwood Inquiry

Who would have thought the Braidwood inquiry would take such a major turn "before" closing arguments ?

Today it was revealed that a crucial email was "overlooked" by the legal team representing the Government of Canada.

In the now partly disclosed email, Supt. Dick Bent writes to an RCMP Assistant Commissioner that the four officers responsible for the killing of Dziekanski "had discussed [their] response en route [to the airport,] that if [Dziekanski] did not comply that they would go to [use the taser]".

This appears to contradict earlier made statements by the four officers; they all testified in court that no discussion on how to respond had taken place prior to entering the airport.

Sounds like signs of cover-up to me.

Helen Roberts apologized today for the "overlooked" email from Bent, but, for someone who has been following this inquiry closely, I find it very hard to believe that such a damning email can so easily be overlooked; of course this legal team wanted to protect the government and its subsidiaries from blame, and given they were the single collector of government dossiers they had the intend, means and the opportunity.

Taser-Nazi of the Week
However appalling the above might read to you, it's not the sole reason why Helen Roberts got nominated for being the Taser-Nazi of the Week. After all, my explanation is still nothing more than speculation on WHY she and her team "overlooked" such a crucial email.

Neither did she get nominated for breaking out in tears: these are stressful times for everyone involved, including Helen Roberts and her Mounties.

What got her nominated was the content of her tearful explanation. She simply kept in line with her "old" narrative, propping up the cops's version of the truth that they never had any conversation about how to respond before getting to the airport, and that Bent was, how did she put that again, simply "mistaken."

A mistake, that explains it, right?

Helen Roberts, dismissing crucial evidence as a "mistake" while withholding this highly contradictory evidence coming from a top RCMP brass has gotten you nominated for Taser-Nazi of the week.

Congratulations!

UPDATE 1: This post called "Canada: Cover-up of RCMP murder of immigrant worker unravels" on the World Socialist website should not be missed

UPDATE 2: I agree with Vancouver Sun's conclusion of the column Mounties in Tasering should face prosecution: "That was not an "oversight." It was professional incompetence or a cover-up."

Vancouver Airport Taser tape conveniently erased

Does anyone remember me talking about an airport surveillance video of the Robert Dziekanski Taser-killing that could give some more insight to what exactly happened? Well, most of it is gone. Erased. And not a single investigating police officer has made a back-up copy of the whole ordeal. How convenient.

Border services says it deleted security footage inadvertently
Chad Skelton, Vancouver Sun

Published: Friday, April 11, 2008

Several hours of surveillance footage recorded at Vancouver airport the night Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski was Tasered and died were inadvertently erased by the Canada Border Services Agency a week after his death, The Vancouver Sun has learned.

The mistake is revealed in a series of internal CBSA e-mails on the Dziekanski matter released to The Sun in response to an Access to Information request.

Dziekanski was Tasered by the RCMP early on Oct. 14, 2007 after he began behaving erratically in a secure area of the airport -- pacing and throwing items against a glass wall.

However, before Dziekanski's interaction with the Mounties, he spent more than six hours in the airport's customs and baggage-claim hall without being noticed by anyone from the CBSA.

After Dziekanski's death, a CBSA officer reviewed all the agency's surveillance footage from that night to see if it provided any indication of what Dziekanski did for several hours in the customs hall.

That review found Dziekanski was picked up by CBSA cameras only about a dozen times, and just for a few minutes each time.

Between 4:15 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. -- a five-hour stretch -- the officer couldn't find Dziekanski on any of the footage, something the agency later said may have been due to construction in the area blocking camera angles.

The officer who reviewed the footage copied all the clips he found of Dziekanski onto a video disk.

However, weeks later, the CBSA decided it should take another look at all the footage to make sure it didn't miss anything.

"This is a significant undertaking, but close review may provide some additional information," John Dyck, head of the CBSA's Pacific Region Program and Communications division, wrote in a Nov. 1 e-mail to regional director Blake Delgaty. "We have requested that the full time period from all cameras be loaded to DVD for further review."

Unfortunately, by that point the original footage had all been erased.

In an e-mail to Dyck the same day, Binder Kooner, head of CBSA passenger operations at the airport, explained that there had been some confusion over how long the footage would be stored before being erased.

"I'm advised that footage was originally available for 16 days but due to subsequent modifications to the surveillance system, the footage is now only available for 7 days after which it automatically erases," Kooner wrote. "The footage is no longer available."

Kooner added that the CBSA officer who viewed all of the footage would write a declaration stating any clips of Dziekanski were included on the DVD.

Still, Dyck wrote back that "this is an unfortunate turn of events; we were under the impression that steps had been taken to preserve the video."

The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, which is investigating Dziekanski's death, said Thursday it wasn't aware the CBSA's original footage had been erased.

However, IHIT spokesman Cpl. Dale Carr said the team is not worried because one of its investigators reviewed the complete footage before it was erased and was confident all clips of Dziekanski are on the DVD.

CBSA spokesman Derek Mellon refused to comment this week on why the agency didn't take steps to preserve the original footage or how confident it is that no shots of Dziekanski were missed.

In an e-mail, Mellon said only that he believed any questions about the footage were already answered in the documents released to The Sun.

The few clips of Dziekanski the officer burned to the DVD were released to The Sun earlier this year in response to a separate Access to Information request.

h/t The Coast of Bohemia: Tazer Video Deleted

LINKS
- Vancouver Sun: Video of YVR taser victim erased

RCMP gives in to pressure about Taser-video; when will they apologize?

The RCMP seems to have smartened up; they are now planning to return the footage of the taser-video within 10 days.

VANCOUVER - The RCMP says it could return the video recording of a Polish immigrant being hit with a Taser stun gun at Vancouver airport to its owner in a week to 10 days.

Victoria resident Paul Pritchard turned the Oct. 14 video of the fatal confrontation over to police on the promise he would get it back within 48 hours - but RCMP later refused and now he's going to court.

Not that the RCMP is finished lying about it all, on the contrary. In the latest press release, Cpl. Dale Carr is explaining the early release as follows:

[Cpl. Dale Carr] says police kept the video bit longer than they anticipated to protect the integrity of investigation.

Talk about distortion of the facts. In an interview with "As it happens", the videographer explained that police intended to withhold the video for 1.5 to 2.5 years. Reducing this to 10 days is a reduction, not an increase, Cpl. Dale Carr.

It's crystal clear that the lawsuits combined with public pressure forced the RCMP to give the video back to the rightful owner within the next few days. And I'm sure we'll all be surprised how much effort the police put into trying "to calm the man"; with a taser, twice.

Isn't it time the RCMP apologizes for being far too trigger-happy?

It's appalling to see this RCMP is continuously trying spin stories instead of dealing with the RCMPs culture of trigger-happy officers, using far to often excessive and unjustified force. Who are the officers that killed Mr. Dziekanski and why were they not fired or put in jail for killing an immigrant? According to several witnesses Mr. Dziekanski was no danger to anyone, so isn't it time the police admits these RCMP officers completely misread the situation? Or is the killing of an immigrant by the RCMP "business as usual?"

I'm sure the RCMP does a lot of good work too, but the level of pure incompetence when it comes to distinguishing critical from less critical situations (think Arar, Sechelt pepper spraying, Montebello, Taser killing in Vancouver) combined with the amount of spin and usual cover up (Arar cover up, Taser killing cover up, Montebello provocateurs) makes one wonder if it isn't about time we get rid of the RCMP altogether.