It is time that police are held to the  same standards as the rest of us.  Were I to attack a child with a potentially lethal weapon I would be behind bars right now.  Not walking free with public money being used to justify my actions.  What I fear is that as time passes and a series of Potemkin investigations carry us farther from the truth, people will begin to forget and be inclined to accept the official (police) version of events.  But no version can justify this action.  Only the complacency of the Canadian public will provide a faux justification.  Don’t give them a victory.  Demand the immediate arrest of the officer involved.  The charge should be attempted murder.

Canadians need to keep their eye on the ball here.  It doesn’t matter if the child was armed.  It doesn’t matter if he approached in a threatening manner.  He is still a child.  Police are trained to subdue people by a number of means.  The taser was the incorrect choice in this case.

Tasers are being used as a great big fun toy by police forces across Canada.  Deaths have already occurred.  It is fortunate that this child is alive.  Next time we may not be so fortunate.  Will it take one of these over sized goons killing a child before Canadians see the light?  The police are no longer the servants of the people in this country.  They are just one more street gang and they need to be brought under control.

Our passivity will only send the message that this behaviour is acceptable in our communities.  It is not in mine.  It is not in the Canada I grew up to know and love.  But I wonder if that place even exists today.

What the public needs to see is the evidence that could only be attained through the use of the enhanced police powers contained in the anti-terrorism laws and how that evidence directly prevented catastrophic loss of life.  Anything else is diversion.  Everything thus far released could have been achieved using standard police procedures.  Why then do we need the added tools of the anti-terrorism law.  That is what must be justified if those laws are to be extended. 

The weakness of the government’s arguments for maintaining the anti-terrorism laws is demonstrated by the mock explosion.  The only reason to include that footage is to terrorize the public.  Terrorism in service of preventing terrorism, there is a metaphor for the new millennium.  Scared and confused the electorate is prepared to accept whatever the government claims will safeguard them, whether it really will or not.  I am surprised that this footage was allowed in court as it is clearly irrelevant.  Whether you are planting a bomb capable only of cracking a ceramic pot or a nuclear device capable of taking out an entire city, you are still committing a crime.  What possible value could a demonstration of the blast from a particular size of explosive be in a trial to determine if these men were guilty of plotting a terrorist attack?  Would they have been less guilty if the explosion planned had been for instance half the size demonstrated.  Or is this the purpose of out anti-terrorism laws?  Are they needed so that the crown may enter irrelevant and inflammatory evidence in order to convict by hatred and anger rather than law.  If so, then it is a frivolous and dangerous justification. 

Eight years after the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington it is time to return to sanity and allow these over-reactions to pass into history.  In the wake of those events a terrified population lost track of what this country and western democracies are supposed to stand for.  Yes it is a dangerous world out there and yes we should be vigilant against those who would threaten our lives.  But in being vigilant let us not become vigilantes.  Let us remember that while law and individual rights and freedoms can leave us vulnerable to dangers, the dangers of a police state without rights are far greater.  In retrospect the chaos of Weimar was preferable to the order of the Third Reich.

It is interesting to note in current times that those who most argue for a minimalist state are those who also argue for greater state coercive power.  The New Right does not want the state to be involved in our lives except to keep THOSE people under control and we all know who we are.  When they talk of a minimalist state they are referring to the Hobbesian Grand Watchman.  Government should keep us secure.  Good idea on the surface.  But justice would keep us even more secure without having heavily armed paramilitaries running our streets with guns and tasers (see past articles on RCMP love of tasers). 

The slogan so commonly chanted at rallies and marches, No Justice - No Peace, is not a threat but a statement of fact.  In an unjust society motivation to violence is never far away. Where justice prevails only those few who suffer from anti-social disorders would create a problem diminishing the need for state coercive power.  We could save young people entering the police force the psychological damage done them by a training regimen that makes them the social problem they are today.  Saving not only them but their families and friends as well.  Current police personnel could be put into rehabilitation facilities where mental health experts can attempt to salvage something human in them.  Okay.  Okay.  I digress.  My ranting aside my point remains valid.  Where people feel they are treated justly, they are less motivated to destabilize the society by violence. Less violence; less need for coercion.  Simple.

As factory workers and the service workers who rely on their commerce lose their homes, anger is bound to rise.  It is not that we think that everyone should be paid exactly the same or live exactly the same lifestyles.  Equality is not sameness.  But there should be some relationship between what someone can legitimately expect to receive from society and what they contribute to the society.  Here in Canada we have a game called hockey.  It is a fun game and I have fond memories of playing it myself in a vacant lot or on the roadway.  But today grown men are paid millions of dollars to chase a frozen rubber disc around an ice pad.  Is there any connection between contribution and recompense here?  America has its equivalent baseball and football.  Today, men (mostly anyway) are receiving multi-million dollar thank yous for driving companies into the ground.   Only bad management and arrogance can explain General Motors plunge from number one to bankruptcy in fifty years.  Especially since the number of cars sold today is exponentially higher than the number sold then.  Apparently they not only did not gain any of the increase but lost the customers they had.  Quality management there, eh?  With grown men playing for millions while children scavenge to survive; with incompetence rewarded by the very people it destroyed; how can anyone expect peace and calm? 

For a practical example of a peaceful yet poor society one only need look at the Tanzania of Julius Nyerere.  Nyerere retired from office and returned to live in the village in which he had been born.  There was no coup or assassination attempts.  Tanzania is a very poor country and Nyerere died as poor as any other citizen.  Justice works.  But in North America we see increasing calls for more police, tougher sentencing, greater restrictions of citizen rights.  The Patriot Act and the anti-terrorism laws in Canada are just the tip of the iceberg.  (One thing I will give Americans, they always have neat names for their laws ).  Terrorism is a convenient excuse to accelerate a process that has been going on for decades.  Particularly since the expansion of the franchise to all formerly discriminated groups, we have seen a steady gutting of the political sphere and an aggressive campaign for control by economic players.  Can’t have THOSE people thinking they can determine the course of their own lives.  If you go back and watch the scene in the film Remains of the Day where Anthony Hopkins character is being ridiculed by the participants of the pro-Nazi meeting you will witness an example of the attitudes of any of our current business leaders.  The very concept of democracy is ridiculed. 

And there is the problem.  Justice means sacrifice.  Justice requires honour and humanity.  Police are cheaper.  So lock your doors tonight but don’t feel all that secure.  Remember the words of Phil Ochs’ song ‘Outside a Small Circle of Friends:’

Living in the ghetto with the coloured and the poor

The rats have joined the babies who are living on the floor

Now wouldn’t it be a riot if they really blew their tops

But they got too much already and besides we got the cops

For now anyway, for now.

The inquiry shows no indication that a life or death crisis existed at the time Mr. Dziekanski was killed.  I am not jumping to conclusions.  But I do admit a prejudice against people and organizations that exert maximum effort to deny and obfuscate their mistakes instead of owning up to them.  Something went wrong at Vancouver airport that tragic day and we could have gotten to the bottom of it long ago and implemented corrective measure had the RCMP not dug in their heels, protected officers whose testimony varied, and generally tried to push off the blame on the victim. 

If you want public respect, don’t insult our intelligence with the we know better than you defence and own up to your conduct. 

As a side note of an even scarier nature, the Commissioner was in Kandahar because the RCMP will be training Afghan police.  All I can say is the Afghan better keep their staplers holstered.

The officer testified that Mr Dziekanski seemed to have an ‘intent to attack’, whatever the hell that means.  Mr. Dziekanski raised his hands over his head in a threatening manner while holding a stapler, apparently threatening to collate 4 strapping young officers.  I can certainly see why the Mounties would fear for their lives.  I work often with staplers and can attest to their status as a deadly weapon.  Offices across Canada lose dozens of employees yearly to stapler attacks.  It is no wonder that they felt compelled to kill the man.  It was kill or be killed.

The Mountie on the stand also testified that he considered the taser as a lesser level of force than the baton or pepper spray.  Two things are interesting here.  One is that force was the accepted solution to this situation.  There were other options available.  The taser was applied immediately after the officers arrived on scene.  Maybe they should have considered something other than force.  This is indicative of the problem of police in our society today of which more in a minute.  The second interesting aspect to this testimony is that when tasers were first issued to police in Canada the public was told that the device was a non-lethal alternative to the firearm.  That would suggest that tasers would only be used in those rare incidents where formerly police would have been forced to use their guns.  The Canadian public embraced their use on that basis.  While it was accepted that in some cases a taser might prove lethal it was only being used to avoid a weapon even more often lethal.  Under that assumption issuing tasers seemed prudent.  The number of times tasers have been used by officers since then clearly shows that either the initial justification was a lie or officers in the field were not properly instructed on when to use them. 

The hilarious sight of officers of our national police force squirming to rationalize and justify their behaviour in this incident aside, this is still a tragedy.  The Dziekanski family still has lost a loved one and likely questions the image of Canada that first drew them here.  What went wrong?  The problem is highlighted by the rush to force.  For centuries policing was done by the military.  When we created separate civilian police forces they retained that military culture.  Today in our more sophisticated and complex society such ham-fisted approaches are more part of the problem than the solution.  If the prevention and successful solution to crime is the goal of policing then a thorough re-evaluation of the training, education and necessary skill sets for police needs to be done. 

Police need to be more culturally aware and sensitive.  Canada is far more multicultural today than during my childhood.  With the richness immigrants bring to our country comes also their fears and understanding of a social order different from our own.  Mr. Dziekanski was alone, really alone.  Think of yourself after a very long flight to a foreign country.  You are tired and cranky after spending long hours packed in like a sardine.  Delays which are never explained to you keep  you only inches from your intended destination.  No one can or will even try to understand you.  You cannot communicate effectively with anyone.  You act out and slam a chair.  Suddenly you are confronted by four large, heavily armed uniformed males.  You come from a culture where the police are seldom your friend, even less often your friend than they are here in Canada if you can imagine that.  What do you do?  You raise your arms in defence, a bluff of bravado in hopes they will back off and not attack as you assume they will.  Instead the officers attack, just as you thought they would.  You struggle.  Weapons of great force are being applied to your body.  You muscles contort, you spasm as the electricity courses through you.  And for Mr. Dziekanski in the end you feel your life force slip away and you succumb to the embrace of death.  Could this have all been avoided?  Yes!  Were the officers properly trained and educated? No!  If they had been this would not have happened.  And if the police want to argue that they are trained to diffuse situations and deal with cultural differences, then they must charge these particular four officers with intentional homicide.  If they had the capacity to diffuse the situation and did not do so then they chose to attack Mr Dziekanski with the likely result (after multiple taser applications) that he would die.  That is murder and the four should spend 25 years in prison before being eligible for parole.  The police cannot have it both ways. 

Before a uniform and weapons are issued, a potential officer must be much better educated than is currently the case.  Psychology, sociology, multiculturalism, religion and ethics must be a large part of their curriculum.  No candidate should be accepted at the policy college until they have completed at least 4 years and preferably more of post-secondary education.  Each of the disciplines I have listed need to be taught in depth.  A cursory introduction to terms and concepts is not enough.  These individuals are going to walk the streets of our communities carrying the power of life and death on their hips.  Without the education I am calling for they are as much of a danger to all of us as the criminals they chase.  The entire paramilitary culture of policing needs to be retired and a new more open and less confrontation culture adopted.  A culture where force must be forced upon them.  If not we simply await the next Dziekanski and we probably won’t have long to wait.

The report that came out suggested that 8 officers should be fired immediately.  They all at least did the honourable thing and resigned first.  This is just one more instance of the growing problem within policing in Canada and throughout the Western world.  The police culture is out of step with the complexities of the modern world.  Law enforcement has embraced the technology with the excitement of a little boy on Christmas morning opening that brand new shiny toy.  And therein lies the problem.  Policing is still a masculine discipline in a world that needs a woman’s touch.