Actually the RCMP are the FEDERAL Police in Canada and operate in ALL provinces and in all cities. Larger cities in Canada require a City Police force to maintain basic policing but the RCMP are still there. In the larger cities, the RCMP take care of the larger chores such as as drug trafficking, gun laws, homicide, major investigations and more. They also take care of Security for the Prime Minister.

In the smaller towns that aren't expected to pay for their own police force, the RCMP take care of the policing.

No, you never see them in their Red Surge unless they are in formal dress. We see them all the time at major events, Canada Day Celebrations and so on but on regular days, they are dressed as a regular police officer would be, and yes, they all carry guns and wear armor as part of their regular, every day garb (me neighbor is an RCMP officer.)


>> ^Mashiki:
>> ^yourhydra:
ps. Ive lived in Canada for 12 years...and i have NEVER SEEN A MOUNTIE.

Depending on where you live, you'll never see them either. The RCMP(mounties) are a regional(provincial) police force for many provinces, despite having federal jurisdiction. The only two provinces that have provincial polices forces are Ontario and Quebec. Those two provinces when they operate out of uniform unless it has to do with matters of state, and there's other issues involved on top of it. It's actually rather complicated.
With regards to the video, douchebags who attempt to capitalize on shitty humor are idiots. Doesn't matter where you are, they just think they're the best thing since sliced bread and this type of crap will die a painful death. Anyway, you can get Foxnews on satellite and digital cable in Canada.

>> ^yourhydra:
ps. Ive lived in Canada for 12 years...and i have NEVER SEEN A MOUNTIE.

Depending on where you live, you'll never see them either. The RCMP(mounties) are a regional(provincial) police force for many provinces, despite having federal jurisdiction. The only two provinces that have provincial polices forces are Ontario and Quebec. Those two provinces when they operate out of uniform unless it has to do with matters of state, and there's other issues involved on top of it. It's actually rather complicated.

With regards to the video, douchebags who attempt to capitalize on shitty humor are idiots. Doesn't matter where you are, they just think they're the best thing since sliced bread and this type of crap will die a painful death. Anyway, you can get Foxnews on satellite and digital cable in Canada.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'RCMP, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, training, RMR, Rick Mercer Report' to 'RCMP, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Mounties, training, RMR, Rick Mercer Report' - edited by calvados

The DEA and the RCMP both agree that its dangerous to educate the public about the difference in drugs. When conducting the War on Drugs they categorize Marijuana with Heroine and Meth, there is no difference to them.

Personally I am all for drug enforcement, I have old friends who have had bad experiences with hard drugs. It's very easy for a kid to become a drug dealer and as long as marijuana is illegal it will always be a stepping stone for teenage dealers and the friends they deal too. As kids grow up there will always be the gangsta/mobster/kingpin wannabees who move on to sell harder drugs. DEA and RCMP should be using their billions of dollars to tackle the drugs and dealers that actually harm communities.

In my neighbourhood we have peaceful adult pot dealers who are cool, calm, relaxed and working individuals, but we also have shady hard dealers who bring riff raff into our neighbourhood. The cops all over north america treat the pot dealers the same as hard dealers, I feel most people agree that with the money spent on the "war on drugs" is being spent inefficiently, I would hope our society isn't going to spend another decade practicing the status quo of throwing people in jail. Hard drug use is up up up we are failing, time to fix it. After all it is our tax money that pays for this system.

Upvote for him never actually figuring out how to fire his weapon.

*EDIT*

Here's some more info on the video directly from baitcar.com

"This incident occurred in on June 6, 2004 when a well known 28-year-old car thief drove up to a parked bait truck in rural Langley in a stolen vehicle. (Between the years 1997 and 2004, he had been charged with 123 criminal offences.) He dumped the first stolen vehicle and then stole the bait truck. As he drove off in the bait truck, the suspect pulled out a loaded handgun and tried fourteen times to fire it indiscriminantly out the window. It appears that the gun was jammed and he was unable to fire it, but his body language indicates that he fully expected it to. The suspect then began casing cars and stopped numerous times to break into three vehicles in order to steal property from them. Soon a police officer who was dispatched to the location of the bait truck in the City of Abbostford arrived on scene while the suspect was out of the truck breaking into cars. As soon as the suspect saw the police car, he accellerated and reached speeds in excess of 140 Km/h while screaming "Oncoming" at the top of his lungs whenever he approached stop signs or red lights. The suspect struck three separate vehicles before dumping the bait truck, stealing a Honda Accord (that had a steering wheel lock on it) and escaping.

The suspect was identified through the bait car video which clearly reinforced the belief that he posed a significant risk to the safety of the public. A large manhunt began involving IMPACT, Surrey RCMP Auto Theft, bike and dog sections, Langley RCMP Street Enforcement Unit, Port Moody Street Crime Unit, the Integrated Emergency Response Team, the South Fraser Emergency Reponse Team, and Air-1, the RCMP's helicopter based at YVR. On June 22, the suspect was spotted behind the wheel of a stolen vehicle in the City of Langley. During the surveillance on the suspect, he stole a second vehicle, this time a Ford F150 from an underground parking lot in Surrey. Due to the excessive speeds the suspect was driving at even without him being aware that he was being followed, Air-1 was called in to provide coverage from the air. The suspect eventually spotted the helicopter, and in an attempt to flee from it, he drove through numerous fences and backyards at a townhouse complex in the Newton area of Surrey. Finally, after ramming the gate of an underground parking lot, he ran inside a large grocery story and fled out the back door into the waiting arms of officers who had surrounded it. The suspect was held in custody for a year awaiting his trial. He was recently sentenced to a four year prison term as a result of 24 charges that stemmed from numerous incidents, including the theft of the bait truck."

Also, in regards to them not cutting the engine:

"At the time of this incident, the bait car program had been up and running for only one month. The engine disabling policy at that time dictated that a bait car engine should only be disabled if the bait car is being driven slowly or is stopped, so that the driver would not lose power steering and power brakes. When this bait truck first took off from police, the responding officer called for the engine to be disabled, but this request was denied since the dispatcher could see the high speeds of the truck on the computer monitor and followed the policy that was in effect at that time. As the vehicle fled and didn't slow down, an attempt to disable the engine was made, but the cellular coverage in this particlar area of rural Aldergrove was weak and electronic communication between the dispatch centre and the bait truck was lost for a long period of time. When communications were re-established, the suspect was getting out of the truck and stealing his next vehicle to escape."

Ok, my point is, you don't need to beat the guy into submission - I think most people could collapse pretty damn fast.

And even a beating is unnecessary - I said to point out that they had options - and they immediately jumped into death-town.

The point about jail is well taken, it was implied but thank you for spelling it out.

Oh, and *humanitarian applies here. And after giving myself 3 days to think about it, *waronterror because of the violence in the video. It is VERY debatable whether or not the American anti-Jihad Crusade is responsible for the RCMP officers' killing Mr. Dziekanski.

The channel was created to be a place to document violent vids that may involve death, and as such, this video's inclusion is no doubt warranted.

If there's any good news coming out of this tragedy, it's that BC has launched a public inquiry - smart move on the part of the provincial government, and I certainly thank them for that.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=27d53437-9bb7-41ec-843c-e42f29d474f2&k=95244

I have respect for BC's Premier for his comments:

"It's not anything that anyone would have ever expected to happen in the province and I'm sure the RCMP would be glad to apologize," B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell said in Vancouver. "So I'm glad to apologize on behalf of people in British Columbia for what took place."
...
She said her brother, who was tasered multiple times on his torso and three times on his head, was also described as violent and combative before more than a dozen witnesses testified differently at an inquest into Kevin Geldart's death. "It was quite eerie for me to hear the same words used to describe Mr. Dziekanski," Geldart said.

The second quote is from a woman whose brother was killed by tasers too.

May their souls rest in peace.

Doogle, it was on CBC radio, and I can't find the exact program, cuz I can't remember the time of day. But a quick look around reveals this reference:

"As I noted in a response to Yoshi's entry, below, writer Paul Palango told CBC radio today that he considers the RCMP to be the worst-trained police force in the country, and that the worst of the worst are routinely stationed in airport detachments." on this blog entry: http://westernstandard.blogs.com/

Looks like Paul Palango has written a lot on the subject including two books "The Last Guardians" and "Above the Law."

Yes, they are a Canada-wide stat. Not sure why it's so important to point that out. I mean some 100+ people have died in the US, but we know that the FBI or Florida State or whoever weren't the only people to do it.

Having said that, I wonder if FBI agents run around with tasers, or if it's been only local cops?

Isn't it rather IRONIC that I think the Feds in the US are considered the 'responsible' cops whereas it's the local yahoos I've been led to believe you should be afraid of (in terms of police brutality, anyway). Contrast that to the opinion I think many/most Canadians have - the local fuzz are relatively ok, if you have a local force - but if you're relying on the RCMP, you're screwed.

Sad.

And the 18 deaths in 5 years is across all Canadian law enforcement, not just the RCMP.

Comments from his former common-law partner, and from other Poles:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=021c49f2-2074-46ff-8997-5f83e66110ba&k=51707


Dubon's analysis, while rambling and alcohol-blurred, was in many ways consistent with that of one of Poland's best-known psychiatrists.

Stanislaw Telesniski, who specializes in courtroom testimony in nearby Krakow, told CanWest News Service that Dziekanski was obviously weakened by fatigue, hunger, fear, nicotine deprivation, and panic over an inability to speak any English.

"All those things make the self-defence system weaker," said Telesniski, who analyzed the video for TVN-24, Poland's largest private television network.

"And you're starting to be more intuitive, like an animal. And after a while you feel you are surrounded by animals, because your rational way of thinking has been stopped because of stress.

"In that state of mind there is a disintegration of your personality, and you start to be aggressive and irrational, behaving in a way no one around you can understand.

"And aggression is one of the ways of communicating to people and showing the sign that something's wrong with you."

He said the four RCMP officers made a fundamental mistake when they approached him aggressively and sent jolts of electricity through his adrenalin-charged body.

"They should have been trained to deal with this situation, and the first rule is to become his friend as fast as possible, and not increase his stress more and more. Make him calm."

Most Poles interviewed in a shopping mall in the nearby city of Katowice, in the heart of Poland's once powerful coal-mining industry about 70 kilometres north of the Czech Republic, agreed that the police were brutally quick.

Several also said the incident has affected their previous view of Canada as a peaceful country.

"You expect something like that in America, but not in Canada," said Adrian Wawrzynczak, 31, a clothing store manager.


BTW, the "once powerful" part is lame writing - it rather still is, especially considering world energy prices.

In this article the LIES spoken by the police are exposed: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/canada/story.html?id=fd8c0fe5-d78e-4219-a0cb-cef362f6f798
My above-comment on the fact that 4 trained officers can handle a civilian without resorting to tasers are backed up by an American policing college instructor.

Or perhaps these cops WEREN'T trained?

The concerns raised: Donald Van Blaricom, former chief of the Bellevue, Wash., police, said police should have made Mr. Dziekanski sit up as soon as possible after he was Tasered to help him breathe normally.

He said Mr. Dziekanski's resistance after being handcuffed may have been due to his inability to catch his breath.

The 2005 report concluded many Taser-related deaths are likely due to the way suspects are restrained after being Tasered, rather than the Taser itself.

The report recommended that, after a Taser shock, a subject be restrained in a way that allows him to breathe easily, preferably face up.

Lyman is the instructor I cited earlier:

"I don't even think batons or Mace would have been necessary, given that there were four officers on the scene," said Mr. Lyman.

Polish government demands prosecution: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/11/16/poland-taser.html

RCMP officers involved in the fatal Taser takedown of a Polish immigrant at Vancouver International Airport should be prosecuted for their "excessively brutal and unjustified" actions, a spokesman for the Polish Foreign Ministry said.

"No attempts were made to use other means to solve the situation, but from the very start the toughest means available to the police was used," Robert Szaniawski told the Associated Press.

Good for them.

Unlike 99% of the governments around the world, including Canada's, that just let people get SCREWED by the Man.

I'm going to go down to the Consulate to file the papers to apply for my Polish citizenship as soon as I get some time off work.

Seriously.

Correction, one woman was trying to help. Gent named Paul Pritchard was recording the vid. On a sidenote, yelling "Russian" at an agitated Polish man doesn't help either.

Funeral news: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=9dd7f34b-5ee3-49a4-bffd-9c7c6dcfc927&k=71634
Additional article with mourners' comments: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=1cbb88d4-bf54-4926-a037-9b18905eed20

Transcript (translated too): http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071115.BC-TaserTranscript16/BNStory/National/home


Vancouver — Voice off camera: Computer's on?

Voice off camera: What language do you speak?

Muffled responses, comments off camera.

Voice off camera: Just look at his face!

Voice off camera: There's 300 people coming in...coming in.

Muffled comments off camera.

Voice off camera: He did it. He almost threw the chair through the window to get out. Look at it. Look...

Muffled voices talk excitedly off camera.

Mr. Dziekanski paces the whole length of the secure arrivals area, walking back to the entrance doors.

Dziekanski: Breathing deeply. I'm going to break this desk. Is this going to continue?

Muffled voices off camera.

Voice off camera: Is there anybody at the door?

Voice off camera: I can't believe he's ... out!

Voice off camera: Nobody's here...from security.

Muffled voices off camera.

Voice off camera: Just five minutes before ...comes down with 300 people on it...

Dziekanski: Holding and waving a small wooden fold-up stool at the entrance door, speaking in Polish. I'm going to break windows. I'm going to break this window here.

Voice off camera: ...something's wrong with him.

Voice off camera: ... is Russian. He speaks Russian.

Voice off camera: Is that what he's speaking? I don't even know what he's speaking.

Voice off camera: What language do you speak?

Voice off camera: He doesn't speak English...

Voice off camera: Russian? Russian?

Muffled voices off camera.

Voice off camera: Ruskian? Nope.

Dziekanski: Mr. Dziekanski holds and waves a small wooden fold-up stool in the entrance doors. I will not allow them.

Voice off camera: There's nothing wrong! There's nothing wrong...it's okay.

Voice off camera: We need a Russian interpreter. We need someone to open the arrivals area...

Dziekanski: Still holding the stool in the entrance doors, I'm going to report on you and the rest of them.

Voice off camera: Calm down.

Dziekanski: Fine, fine. Takes a breath. We'll see.

Woman walks over to Mr. Dziekanski, motioning to him, holding out her hand.

Woman: Calm down. She motions to him, holding out her hand in order to communicate with him.

Dziekanski: Still holding stool, pacing in the entrance doors,. Get away. Get away.

Muffled voices off camera.

Dziekanski: Swears.

Muffled voices off camera.

Woman : Motioning to Mr. Dziekanski. Calm down please.

Woman tries to communicate through the clear glass partition, with Mr. Dzienkanski who has gone into the arrivals area.

Dziekanski: (Inaudible)

Woman: ....Excuse me...I know I know...

Mr. Dziekanski and the woman speak through the partition, nodding and motioning.

Woman walks back away from partition.

Muffled voices off camera.

Voice off camera: Look! He's got a computer...

Mr. Dziekanski throws some laptop or computer on to the glass partition.

Voice off camera: Whoa.

Voice off camera: Right in front of the cops too.

Voice off camera: Jesus Christ.

Mr. Dziekanski holds up an electric equipment and attempts to throw it.

Voices off camera: No no no.

Mr. Dziekanski puts down the equipment rather than throwing it.

Two airport security officer come to the entrance doors and Mr. Dziekanski comes to the doors to meet them.

Voice off camera: He speaks Russian and nobody can help him...You need a Russian interpreter here to calm him down. Cathay's coming down in five minutes.

Voice off camera: ...Russian interpreter.

Voice off camera: ...Can you call Customs and tell them to stop it....

Voice off camera: He is so scared...just leave him.

Voice off camera: Why are the police not here? We called security, we called the police.

Voice off camera: Calm down, calm down please.

Camera turns to police.

Dziekanski: Mr. Dziekanski screams. Police! Police!

Police speaks to him and points. They motion him to inside and they point to a spot on the ground and they encircle him.

Dziekanski: What are you doing? An RCMP officer points at him. There's nothing here .

An RCMP officer shoots him with a Taser.

RCMP officer: Get down, get down!

Dziekanski: (Screams as he falls to the ground)

Police fire two more Taser blasts.

RCMP officer: Get a Taser.

RCMP officer: Put your hands up.

RCMP officer: Get him down, get him down!

Dziekanski continues to struggle, scream

Security guard: Operations…(unintelligible)

Dziekanski: Oh, no! It's pinching.

Four RCMP officers pin Mr. Dziekanski as they restrain him.

Dziekanski: Bandit!

Pritchard: Jesus.

RCMP officer: Get his knees, right…

Pritchard: How is he still fighting them off?

Off-camera: Noboby knows why. He speaks Russian. Nobody knows why. No rhyme or reason.

Pritchard: Prime footage for my home videos.

Pritchard: He's unconscious…I heard him say Code Red.

Pritchard: I've only got three minutes of footage, three minutes of memory, three minutes of memory left.

@Mycroft - a woman was a bystander and recorded the entire event. The man was relatively calm - the woman doing the recording was trying to get him to calm down - until the police showed up, so said initial news reports.

"In response to the question as to why four RCMP officers could not have overwhelmed him without the use of the taser, I would suspect that a physical confrontation ("wrestling him to the ground") presents many risks to the officers and the suspect that are avoided by the prospect of a non-lethal incapacitation from a distance."

OMFG that is the biggest cop-out I've ever seen. A single officer with a nightstick can beat someone into submission if necessary. To have TWO COPS shooting TWO TASERS at someone is not only wrong, it is murder when it kills, as we see that it did. We have a few Sifters with actual law enforcement training and experience who should be calling you out on that the moment they see that ...observation.

I'm very much a Sifter who's been historically behind the 'don't put it up' front, but with a proper NSFW tag and the very high importance of what's going on here, I'm 100% behind this tragic video being documented on the Sift.

Yeah - I agree.

let's not think there's an epidemic of RCMP outfits tasering people to death intentionally in their walk on the beat.

If I may distract - there ought to be attention on the huge numbers of suspects who die in American custody.
Check this story on the thousands who die in public custody in the USA.

No defense of the RCMP, I'm sure the event was studied and resulted in a change of tactic for the manuals...to include possible cases of "excited delirium",

...a controversial term used to explain deaths of individuals in police custody, in which the person being arrested, detained, or restrained is highly agitated and may be under the influence of stimulants.....There may also be a link between excited delirium deaths and the use of Tasers to subdue agitated people.

What happened here is unfortunate, but I fail to see how this is an indictment of the RCMP or the Taser.
I also feel the video title is misleading. Saying that he was "tasered to death" implies that he was shocked repeatedly until it killed him. It appears that he was alive and struggling with officers well after being tasered what appears to be twice (though I don't have enough experience with the device to say that for certain).
What I see in this video is a man who is highly disturbed (and yes, potentially dangerous) behaving erratically and disrupting operations at an airport. While I cannot speak for the RCMP, I suspect their thinking was that subduing the man would allow them to return the airport to normal operations and take him somewhere else so that he could be held until a translator could be found to straighten out what was going on. To my eyes, his death was not a foreseeable outcome of the actions they took.
In response to the question as to why four RCMP officers could not have overwhelmed him without the use of the taser, I would suspect that a physical confrontation ("wrestling him to the ground") presents many risks to the officers and the suspect that are avoided by the prospect of a non-lethal incapacitation from a distance.
I've yet to see any definitive answers regarding the cause of death, and it's possible that the parties involved in investigating this incident have reason to protect their own interest, but I'd like to know more about what actually killed him before passing judgement.
I would like to say I believe this video is a worthwhile addition to the sift, since I would have gotten a much different picture of these events from the descriptions I've read elsewhere.