RCMP backtracking comes too late

April 27, 2009
Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver Sun

Slowly, but surely, the Braidwood Commission into the Taser-related death of Robert Dziekanski is climbing the RCMP chain of command to determine who in authority countenanced the coverup that occurred.

Just as Watergate began with an inept burglary and grew to ensnare the president, so the inept response by four dumb cops at Vancouver Airport on Oct. 14, 2007 is being eclipsed by the revelations of what followed.

The testimony last week of the RCMP "media relations" officers who left falsehoods uncorrected for more than a year was startling.

In the hours after Dziekanski's death, RCMP Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre, the initial spokesman in the case, told reporters the Polish immigrant had been stunned twice when, in fact, the Taser had been deployed five times.

He went on to describe Dziekanski threatening the officers, swinging an object at them and struggling violently after the first Taser jolt had no effect -- even though a bystander's video showed otherwise.

Lemaitre said he only repeated what he was told by Cpl. Dale Carr, who was working with the investigators at the scene.

So embarrassing was Lemaitre's testimony, it prompted current senior RCMP spokesman Sgt. Tim Shields to quickly apologize for the force.

Like the rest of the RCMP's backtracking during these proceedings, however, it comes 19 months too late.

Carr, who took over from Lemaitre as spokesman, said he never corrected the initial statements because he was following orders from Supt. Wayne Rideout, the man then in charge of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team.

The inaccuracies were corrected 14 months later, in December 2008, when Crown counsel announced it would not lay charges against any of the four Mounties.

Rideout ran the investigation into Dziekanski's death and was responsible for the report used to make that charge decision.

When he appears before the inquiry, he faces some tough questions.

For instance, why were the four officers not confronted with the amateur video and asked to explain the blatant contradictions between it and their version of events?

After 18 years as an investigator, Rideout could not help but notice the glaring incongruities. Not to go back and re-interview the Mounties in light of the video appears incompetent.

I am curious to see whether this veteran career cop is prepared to wear this botch-up or whether he will point upwards, too. That's why it's not just Rideout we should hear from.

I'd like to see on the stand former RCMP superintendent Ward Clapham, hired in the summer of last year to run the BC Transit cops.

He was in charge of the Richmond detachment, whose officers were involved, and, at 49, he retired suddenly last April, less than six months after the Dziekanski incident.

Did he agree with the strategy to leave the public record uncorrected? How does he feel about the conduct of his men? I bet he could shed a lot of light on these events.

But let's cut to the chase.

The man ultimately responsible for the RCMP response to this tragedy was Assistant Commissioner Peter German.

He's the only Mountie whose ambition to one day occupy the Commissioner's office in Ottawa was threatened by the Dziekanski scandal. If there is a Richard Nixon in this drama, it is German.

I'd like to see him on the stand explaining his role. Or is he going to say this outrageous incident didn't warrant his personal interest?

He must have approved Rideout's don't-tell-the-public strategy given the international furore Dziekanski's death was generating. The RCMP is a paramilitary organization and no one does anything that isn't approved by the officer in charge.

This was German's watch. The buck stopped with him.

So I say come on down, Assistant Commissioner, and tell us about your role in this entire sordid affair. Inquiring minds would love to know.

National Post editorial board: The RCMP tests another new low

April 24, 2009
National Post

Thanks to the latest testimony at the hearing into Robert Dziekanski’s death, we now know the RCMP’s sorry mishandling of the 2007 tragedy reached well beyond the four officers who Tasered the Polish traveller until he died.

Corporal Dale Carr, spokesman with a unit tasked with investigating the death, made clear that the four officers are just one link in a chain of command which takes for granted that misleading the public, misinforming journalists and covering up for one another is a routine part of their job.

Consider Cpl. Carr’s testimony. He told the inquiry, headed by former Appeal Court justice Thomas Braidwood, that within hours of Mr. Dziekanski’s death at Vancouver International Airport, he attended a meeting of homicide investigators, and twice watched an amateur video showing the confrontation that led to Dziekanski’s death. Making notes, Cpl. Carr wrote that Dziekanski grabbed a computer, ignored instructions from police, swung at the officers and continued to resist once knocked to the ground by the first Taser strike.

None of that was true. Nevertheless, he passed the imagined narrative on to another RCMP spokesman, and stood by him as he related the falsehoods to reporters. (He claims he wasn’t really listening.) When it became evident later that the information was wrong, a superior told him not to correct the record. Nor was he allowed to acknowledge the existence of the damning video, which the force gave up only after its owner went to court.

All of this comes amidst a debate about how much latitude officers should be given to use Tasers to subdue victims. In this regard, the Dziekanski revelations have done little to bolster the RCMP’s claim that its officers should be able to use such weapons at their own discretion. By brutalizing a confused traveller, and then apparently conspiring to obscure the truth about the encounter, the RCMP has squandered much of the esteem in which Canadians hold this institution.

National Post

RCMP Spokesman Speaks

April 22, 2009
CBC News

Corporal Dale Carr admits he gave incorrect information to the public after the Dziekanski incident. Now, he's being asked why, and why he didn't correct it

Top-level Mountie decided not to correct Dziekanski facts, inquiry told

April 22, 2009
The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER, B.C. — A senior Mountie handling the RCMP's public response to Robert Dziekanski's death at Vancouver airport says he watched a witness video of Dziekanski's death twice and didn't want to see it again.

Cpl. Dale Carr told a public inquiry into the death that he saw the video of the last moments of Dziekanski's life at a homicide briefing the morning he died.

"I didn't have a desire to rewatch it," Carr said Wednesday during his appearance at the inquiry. "I just found it upsetting and didn't really want to see it again."

The RCMP spokesman said it was clear within two days of Dziekanski's Oct. 14, 2007, death that some of the information being provided to the public was wrong.

But Carr, media relations officer for the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, said he decided not to correct the misleading information.

Carr said the homicide unit's boss, Supt. Wayne Rideout, decided two days after the incident that public statements should focus on the investigation process, not on potential evidence.

"It was decided that we weren't going to attempt to try and correct any of that information until we had all of the facts and all of the evidence before us," Carr said. "I knew that eventually this would all come out at the proverbial end of the day."

Dziekanski died after being stunned several times with a Taser in a confrontation with RCMP officers at the international arrivals area of the airport. Police were summoned after Dziekanski began throwing furniture.

In the hours after his death, RCMP made several crucial mistakes in describing what happened.

Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre, the spokesman for the force in the case, told reporters Dziekanski had been stunned twice when, in fact, the Taser had been deployed five times.

He said Dziekanski had been struggling with officers and swinging an object at them, although the bystander's video shows otherwise and that three, not four, Mounties faced off against the agitated man, who spoke no English.

When the witness video, shot by Paul Pritchard of Victoria, was broadcast after the Mounties returned it to him, the discrepancies sparked an international furor that, in part, led to the inquiry currently underway.

Lemaitre, senior RCMP spokesman at the time, earlier told the inquiry that Carr was his sole source of information about the incident.

Carr said Wednesday that he quickly realized an in-custody death - especially involving a Taser and at the airport - would excite a lot of media attention, including outside Canada.

He and Lemaitre attended a homicide unit briefing and viewed the video before heading to the airport to talk to reporters, Carr told the inquiry.

He said he took notes during the briefing but admitted they don't show precisely where some of the erroneous information came from. No one who spoke is identified in the notes and Carr said he can't recall the names 18 months later.

Carr was at Lemaitre's side for media scrums at the airport but testified he paid little attention to what the senior spokesman was saying.

He suggested Lemaitre may have embellished some of facts, including the number of times Dziekanski was stunned.

"I gave Sgt. Lemaitre the information that's here in my notebook," Carr said. "Additional information, additional editorial comments that Sgt. Lemaitre made, I can't be confident that I gave him that information."

Lemaitre was taken off the case after 48 hours, mainly for logistical reasons, Carr said.

The two had agreed at the outset the best strategy was to get timely and accurate information out to the media without compromising the investigation.

Carr said he became aware there were mistakes in the public statements that releasing the video could have cleared up.

But investigators considered the recording as evidence, he said, and did not want to release it and risk tainting the independent recollections of witnesses.

Carr said the case was evolving from an in-custody death to a criminal probe, where discussing the evidence could derail a future court case.

"I was prepared to say that we're not going to talk about the video, we're not going to talk about evidence until the entire investigation is complete," he said.

Mountie tells Taser inquiry he made errors in media interviews after fatal airport incident

April 21, 2009
By Neal Hall, Vancouver Sun

A former media relations officer for RCMP headquarters admitted he made factual errors during media interviews one day after a fatal incident at Vancouver's airport in 2007.

Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre recalled Tuesday at the Braidwood Inquiry that his strategy was "to get out as much information as possible" about the fatal incident involving Robert Dziekanski.

He initially told the media that the man died after he was violent at the airport and was Tasered twice.

Lemaitre said in one CTV interview, played at the inquiry, that the man didn't respond to the first Taser shot so the weapon had to be deployed again.

Dziekanski died after he encountered four Mounties at the airport about 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 14, 2007, and was Tasered five times.

Lemaitre admitted, under questioning by commission counsel Art Vertlieb, that he had a watched a portion of the video taken by an airport bystander before making any statements to the media, but hadn't noticed Dziekanski fell after the first Taser shot.

Lemaitre, then the senior RCMP media relations officer and now working in the traffic section, recalled he initially got a phone call at 4:30 a.m., about three hours after the fatal incident, from Cpl. Dale Carr, who said there may be international media interest in the incident.

Carr asked Lemaitre to meet him at the Richmond RCMP detachment, where there was a "briefing" about 7:30 a.m. attended by about a dozen officers, including Cpl. Monty Robinson, one of the officers involved in the in-custody death.

Lemaitre recalled asking Carr: "Dale, what is it you want me to say?"

He added he didn't take any notes during the briefing but an RCMP news release was typed up.

"How is it that your information was inaccurate?" Vertlieb asked.

"That was the information I had obtained that morning," Lemaitre said.

"My only point of contact was Cpl. Dale Carr...I did not receive information from any other source than Cpl. Carr."

Lemaitre said by the time he realized he had provided the media with incorrect information, Carr had taken over being spokesman for the investigation by the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT).

He added he thought Carr would correct the facts later when he saw fit.

He said he did "absolutely not" intentionally give the media inaccurate information.

"Contrary to popular belief, we are not spin doctors," Lemaitre said.

The RCMP didn't reveal that five Taser shots were fired until last Dec. 12, when Crown announced no charges would be laid against the officers involved in the Dziekanski incident.

Carr is expected to testify next.

Earlier Tuesday, a police Taser expert testified that multiple Taser shocks could cause the person's arms and legs to lock up.

"I've experienced that myself," recalled Delta police Const. Craig Baltzer, who has been Tasered about 30 times for durations of up to 15 seconds.

He said he has seen a person receive multiple shocks and be unable to move their arms or legs because the debilitating electrical current from the weapon "locks up" the muscles.

Baltzer, who trains officers on the use of Tasers, said police are taught that multiple Taser shocks can be hazardous.

"It's a situation to be aware of because you are putting people through an extreme workout," he explained.

"Everything is ramped up," he said, adding the body reacts to the "shock and awe from the experience" of 50,000 volts being discharged from the weapon.

The inquiry is probing the death of Dziekanski, 40, who had left his home in Poland about 30 hours earlier and had come to Canada to live with his mother.

But the mother and son never connected at the airport.

The mother had told her son she would meet him at the baggage carousel, not realizing it was in the international arrivals area, which is inaccessible to the public.

After waiting many hours for her son in the public area, the mother went home after being told by airport officials that Dziekanski could not be found.

Dziekanski eventually became agitated and began throwing around a chair and laptop computer.

Police received a 911 call reporting a possibly intoxicated man throwing around luggage.

Dziekanski, who had no alcohol in his system, likely was suffering delirium from prolonged lack of sleep and dehydration.

Four RCMP officers arrived and tried to speak with Dziekanski, who spoke no English.

The Polish man threw up his hands and grabbed a stapler, prompting an officer to deploy a Taser, causing the man to fall to the floor.

The Taser was deployed another four times because police believed Dziekanski was resisting having his hands handcuffed behind his back.

He died at the scene minutes later.

Media cops told to testify

April 15, 2009
By Suzanne Fournier, The Province

Commissioner Tom Braidwood has ruled that two RCMP media-relations officers who have spoken out publicly about the death of Robert Dziekanski must testify under oath at the Taser inquiry.

Helen Roberts, lawyer for the government of Canada and the RCMP, argued yesterday that Cpl. Dale Carr of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Unit (IHIT) and RCMP spokesman Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre should not appear as witnesses before the inquiry, which is looking into Taser use and the Oct. 14, 2007, death of Dziekanski.

IHIT conducted the investigation of the four RCMP officers involved in the Tasering and restraint of the Polish immigrant at Vancouver International Airport.

Lemaitre made several erroneous statements about the incident to media.

Both officers are slated to testify at the inquiry later this week or early next week.

"Neither Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre or Cpl. Dale Carr were witnesses to what happened to Mr. Dziekanski. They have no first-hand knowledge of the events leading to Mr. Dziekanski's death," argued Roberts.

But Braidwood noted that he is faced with a stark conflict between the RCMP version of events and the objective evidence of a video shot by a bystander.

"We have on the one hand the video itself . . . and we have the officers' recollections and various statements by the officers," said Braidwood.

Outside the inquiry, Braidwood's ruling was hailed by lawyers for the government of Poland and Dziekanski's mother, Zofia Cisowski, who is planning to place flowers today, on what would have been her son's 41st birthday, at the Vancouver airport's international arrivals area, where her son died.

"The misinformation from the RCMP began in the hours immediately following this incident and still continues," said Don Rosenbloom, who is acting for the Polish government.

Rosenbloom said there is "enormous public mistrust" due to the wide gap between video evidence and RCMP statements about Dziekanski's death.

Walter Kosteckyj, Cisowski's lawyer, asked: "Why did IHIT not confront the RCMP officers they interviewed with the conflicts between their statements and the video?"

"We must hear directly from Carr and Lemaitre."

The four officers involved recanted key parts of statements they gave to IHIT after Dziekanski's death.

The Criminal Justice Branch has ruled that none of the four officers will face criminal charges in Dziekanski's death, but the branch could reopen the case.