umm hello snuff anyone? *blog

This video is being sent to Sift Talk for discussion - blog requested by thesnipe.

I agree with thesnipe snuff, *ban

tonyfox has been nominated for banination by gorgonheap. This may be due to abuse or violations of the posting guidelines. If this nomination is seconded, the account will be permanently disabled.

isn't banning for self-linking? Tony's made some contributions, just point him to the posting guidelines

Never mind, I did a search and this one was also blogged, and allowed to continue, so what now?

Effen bullshit both of em. I request for a discard. I'd do it myself but the backlash from sick bystanders screaming for this kind of shit would bring it back to life anyway. So I request from Mr. Fox that it be discarded out of respect for people who are no longer alive to see their death displayed as entertainment to millions.

^ good idea. my main issue was that we hold off on the banning.

Is there something like a *negativeban that can be used to bring the ban total back down?

I think the Sift definition of Snuff is a little off. Here is what the dictionary states.

"snuff film
–noun
1. Slang. a pornographic film that shows an actual murder of one of the performers, as at the end of a sadistic act."

another source

"snuff film
n. Slang
A movie in a purported genre of explicit pornography culminating in the actual violent death of a participant in a sex act."


Not sure why this is snuff, either way, this is big news, front page stills from this video are all over the newspapers up here. This Video has also been playing on the news, it's quite a big story. CBC, the Telegraph, CTV and more news outlets are all posting this video. It's a very important piece of evidence in a very important debate about Taser guns.

Personally I don't care to watch clips that involve people dying, but there is not shortage of deathscenes on the sift. The difference with this death and "cinematic death" is that there is an actual victim in this case, there is a story behind this video.

Gorgonheap says...
"So I request from Mr. Fox that it be discarded out of respect for people who are no longer alive to see their death displayed as entertainment to millions."

I hope you did not find this video entertaining. But If I was tasered to death by cops, the sift has full permission to spread the video far and wide, more eyes need to see this abuse of power and understand it.

I also think that this is a very valid contribution to the Sift. The video is clearly and appropriately labelled, so people can choose to watch it or not depending on their sensibilities.

Just as in the “War on Terror” I think it's important to expose police brutality in all its forms so that there will hopefully be some better training and legal safeguards against this kind of thing.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

I've read about this case- it's very sad. The guy had limited English and he was trapped in immigration- while his mother was waiting for him on the other side.

I can't decide on this one- on the one hand- I think this kind of stuff needs to be exposed. On the other- this shows a human death in a pretty graphic manner.

I'm inclined to think that the ambiguity caused by its relevance decides the issue. True snuf would have no ambiguity.

I'm strongly opposed to allowing authority institutions/figures to have immunity from repercussions for unacceptable action through a lack of public awareness and apathy. I have a family member who has worked as a high profile lawyer on behalf of families of similar situations in the UK and the high media profile can be vital to ensuring openness and transparency and to undermine the immediate defensive lies that can often be released to counter negative headlines.

Personally, i have no interest or pleasure from watching a human life lost, and have a strong aversion to doing so, but thats not the same issue as whether this vid should be here. I think it should. Its clearly labeled, and people like me can know of the story, see relevant articles, check snips of the vid to confirm the general aspects of it, without having to watch the actual death.

Important stories should not be buried.

Fedquip, arvana, and Thylan all said it well, so I have very little to add. This is very newsworthy and therefore should not be discarded, nor should tonyfox be banned for this. I don't think it qualifies as snuff at all.

The truth may be ugly at times, but it needs to be seen for informed decisions to be made. Keep the video posted and don't ban tonyfox.

So should we *rëturn?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Yes, lets *return

Returning this video from Sift Talk - return requested by dag.

whether it makes it out of the queue now is another question

This is an unfortunate outcome - but I do see the focus of this being on the handling from the RCMP (Canadian Federal Police).

There is a rapidly advancing shift of the use of Tasers -
To taser for submission, not remission, and that they're not necessarily the same thing.

Come on, get off the ban wagon.

I thinking this one over again:

• I would be a big shame for this not to be on Videosift (discarded or banned) because it is of upmost imporance (at least in Canada) making headlines, and this video should be available and should be available and pushed for all too see.
  
• That someone died should not outweigh the value of this video. The act of death is not the focus, but death is the consequence of the video with the situation surrounding it.
  
• Essentially votes decide its next outcome. but I hope we're beyond discussing of discarding it and of banning the user (tonyfox) that posted it.

this is serious stuff, world is going mad

this needs a Zydeco soundtrack with creative use of backwards and forwards video loops set to the music, then it will sell

This should not be in the terrible channel. *nochannel *Canada *Worldaffairs

This video has been removed from all channels (Canada, Terrible, Worldaffairs) due to invalid channel assignment - nochannel invoked by Zifnab. Please review the FAQ to learn about appropriate channel assignments.

Adding video to channels (Canada, Worldaffairs) - requested by Zifnab.

Very serious and emotional matter... I'm quite outraged and would normally refrain from commenting in this state BUT

Are you aware of the fact that in this video someone actually DIED? A real death, no pulp-fiction-acting, Fedquip! I mean come on, i just witnessed someone being KILLED by police! In my eyes this is NOT something for the sift!

And besides: The cops are killers, they should be treated as such. Non-lethal weapon my ass! For using tasers alone i hope they burn and rott in hell or whatever punishment their religion holds for them. When will people finally stop using those awful things? Really, i hope they get what they deserve.

this is whats going to end taser use

Guys what are we doing, this video is too important to be even thinking about banning it.

Tasers are being used outside of the guidelines of the EU human rights commission. That's all you need to know. Time to get rid of them.

*nsfw

This video has been flagged as being Not Suitable For Work - declared nsfw by Fedquip.

Here is Canadian News Coverage of the Tasering.

CBC The National - Oct 15th
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMVmvLbOVJs

I think the proposition of banning this video is preposterous. The man lost his life and it is a tragedy. However, the video itself is of great importance as a historical record of the events surrounding his death. On top of that, the video itself is not "entertaining" as it would need to be to fit the videosift definition of being snuff. I'm not advocating that videos that portray death be fair game on the sift, but when a video that is of relevance to controversial contemporary news happens to have a death occur within it, its availability should not be censored. The video is clearly labeled and if this type of thing is too much for you, don't watch it.

Im unsure of the RCMP rules on tasering, but shouldnt it have the same rules of use as using lethal force with a gun? YOu are telling me that 4 trained cops couldnt grab a defensless guy? Tasers shouldnt be about making the job easier for cops, it should be about not taking lives when beforehand lethal force wouldve been used....

This is another case where it would be good to have a *graphic label.

tonyfox, please consider adding a warning to the video description that it depicts a human death and that viewers should decide whether or not to watch it based on their own discretion.

This poor man was wandering around the secure area of the airport for 10 hours, and no one, no one, asked if something was wrong or if they could help. Where did basic humanity go?
CBC today did a piece on the RCMP being the worst trained police force in Canada, and included comments about the physical size of officers getting smaller, which makes tasers an attractive weapon of choice.

This incident is hugely embarrassing for me and my country. This video should not be supressed, nor the poster. There was no excuse for using a taser on that person, especially considering the situation. He had no idea what was going on. Those officers should be removed from the RCMP at the very least.

Tasers, photo radar (no, I am not trying to say speeding is OK or comparable to death), and the like are all tools being misused that separate the police from the citizens and encourage mistrust and abuse.

Just horrible.

let's not forget this is an ISOLATED INCIDENT.

there is not a rampage of misuse of Tasers, and with their use under scrutiny now more than ever, I'm more than positive Canada's federal police have taken notice. They watch TV and read newspapers.

Isolated incident? LUOL?!?

In Canada alone there have been 18 reported fatalities as a result of the use of a Taser in the past 5 years.

18 over 5 years?
NOT many.

18 RCMP officers have been killed in the past 5 years. Not typical either, I grant that, but I hope that puts into perspective. (source)

The taser incidents are high profile. So is the death of any RCMP officer or any civilian. And 18 is 18 too many. But 18 over 5 years is NOT a high number in a country of 30 million.

luol? watsat?

Not clear is whether those supposed 18 deaths from Tasers were from the conduct of the RCMP. Were they?

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.

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.

Why was this being video taped?

This should get the attention it deserves across the globe, cause police everywhere is getting their hands dirty with more and more deadly (but "non-lethal") means. It's not that I totaly disaprove of some of this alternative weaponry, it's just that it's being used without discrimination on every non-armed civilian, men, women or children - so I say let's make some noise about it. Let them know we won't take it.

It's just wrong.

as someone with a mild heart condition I've always found it very scary that tasers are used to subdue like this.

one would hope four officers might handle the situation by other means.

@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.

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.

Cold. Blooded. Murderers.

That's all I want to say. What level of STUPIDITY and COWARDICE was at work here? I've had to deal with more dangerous kittens. These cops better lose their badges.

http://newsnet.ca/phpPETITION/index.php to sign the petition being presented to the Canadian government demanding answers.

Memorial site: http://studio905.com/dziekanski/

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.

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.

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

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.

"Loose their badges"?

LOL, they should go straight to jail.

And with them, whoever gave them the tasers, he should be personally responsable too.

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 would very much appreciate the voice of experience in that regard. And it's not a cop-out - it's my viewpoint. If someone who knows better from experience can educate me otherwise, then my viewpoint will change.
From my personal perspective, if I became agitated, disruptive, and potentially dangerous in a public place due to being "weakened by fatigue, hunger, fear, nicotine deprivation, and panic" to the point where I was not capable of rationally responding to the commands of law enforcement, I'd much prefer to be subdued with a Taser than "beaten into submission" with a nightstick. That said, I definitely believe that anyone who is issued a Taser for use should be required to experience its effects firsthand.

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.

Adding video to channels (Humanitarian, Waronterror) - requested by Krupo.

*dead

This published video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by jonny.

Awarding Tymbrwulf with one star point for fixing this video's dead embed code.

*dark *fear

Adding video to channels (Dark, Fear) - requested by nibiyabi.