THE STRANGE CASE OF THE MISSING TERRORIST SCIENTISTS IN THE NEWS

In April of this year the RCMP announced that they had uncovered a bio-terrorist threat involving two Canadian scientists working for the innocuous sounding: Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). The agency itself had been in the news lately due to regulatory failures leading to a number of food poisoning cases from bacterial outbreaks in a packing plant in Alberta.

The two CFIA scientists were busted for attempting to sell Brucellis virus to China. In fact one of the scientists, herself Chinese, had gotten away to China.1 They were under investigation for two years when it became known that they were trying to commercialize the bacteria they had developed with CFIA. 3

Last October 24, RCMP and Ottawa police intercepted Nielsen, a well-respected scientist, on his way to the Ottawa airport. Officers found 17 vials of pathogens in Nielsen’s possession that “he was attempting to export in an unsafe manner.“These vials were analyzed by the PHAC and found to contain live brucella bacteria that can infect livestock and humans.”
University of Guelph Prof. Keith Warriner said humans who come in contact with the bacteria can develop flu-like symptoms “that go on and on for months and months.” Warriner told CTV’s Power Play Wednesday that brucella is what is known as a select agent, because it is “very nasty” and highly contagious.

This bacteria is common in domesticated animals, mammals in general and can impact human health. it was also the first bacteria to become weaponized in 1954 by the US army.2

"Three types of the bacteria that cause brucellosis – Brucella abortus, Brucella melitensis andBrucella suis – are designated as select agents. This means that they have the potential to be developed as bioterrorism agents due to their ability to undergo aerosolization."     Center for Disease Control 

So we have a case where a world renowned specialist in the field of burcellosis, Dr. Nielsen  is busted for trying to smuggle weaponized potential bacteria out of Canada with his research partner in order to sell it to China.

Nielsen had been a seasoned researcher of the bacteria and was part of a team scientists that won a CFIA Technology Transfer Award in 2003 for developing a 15-second test for detecting brucellosis in cattle, the disease caused by brucella.
He is set to appear in a Canadian court on April 17, while Yu, a resident of Ottawa, is believed to be in hiding in China. Local police declined to confirm if extradition would be an option if Yu is apprehended overseas.

Now you would think this would be front page news; "Bio Terrorists Busted In Canada.", but it wasn't. In fact after barely a week in the press, as various news agencies picked up the story and repeated it in the inside pages, the story disappeared from the press. 

It is now three months later and there is no mention of these two lab coated terrorists in the Canadian press. Yet the press and the government have made a big deal over home grown terrorists, including the two complete losers who were set up for the alleged Canada Day bombing,  including this recent timeline by CBC which fails to include Nielsen and Yu.

In fact the RCMP charges themselves underplayed the importance of this as bio-terrorism, instead charging them with crimes around intellectual property. Nielsen was carrying 17 highly toxic vials of bacteria on himself, he was going to get on a plane, he was busted in a busy national airport. Had those vials broken or otherwise released their contents who knows what kind of serious bacteriological outbreak could have occurred. 

Backed up by its clandestine laboratory response team, the Ottawa Fire Services hazmat response team, and Ottawa Police Service first responders, RCMP "intercepted" Nielsen on Oct. 24. According to Rollings, Nielsen at the time was on his way to Ottawa's airport and was scheduled to leave Canada for China.
Upon arresting and searching Nielsen, RCMP said, they found in his possession 17 vials of pathogens which they allege he was "attempting to export in an unsafe manner." PHAC later analyzed the vials and found them to contain live brucellabacteria. Nielsen was then arrested for breach of trust and for "unsafe transportation of a human pathogen."

The other problem with this story has been the delay in releasing information, Dr. Nielsen was busted last October, yet the RCMP did not release any information about this until shortly before he was to go to trial April 17. Meanwhile his fellow accessory and partner had apparently gotten away to China. The investigation itself had been going on for two years. 

Now compare that with the instantaneous news about the Canada Day bombing plan, a bombing that never occurred, ( if it ever was even a real threat, it has all the makings of a  false flag operation) yet the B.C. couple busted for this were in the news for weeks, and still are in the news. Not so our two CFIA scientists.

Is it because of the lab coats? If you are a scientist does that make you special? Clearly in this case it does. First there is the fact that the charges do NOT explicitly deal with bio-terrorism,  or terrorism at all, they have to do with commercial property and breach of safety. 

Yet clearly this was a bacteria that could be weaponized. It was being sold to a foreign country in violation of the criminal code section on Treason.4  That's right the actions taken by Dr. Nielsen and his partner, could be construed as treason, let alone more serious charges around bio-terrorism, than what they have been charged with.

Is it because this had to do with China rather than AL-Qaeda? And while Chinese corporate or state espionage may be involved, that seems to have been deemed less of threat to Canada than supposed Al-Qaeda sympathizers, actually no proof of this allegation ever surfaced after it was made by the RCMP,  who lived in a hovel in B.C. and planed to supposedly make pressure cooker bombs, 

Is it because the media can't make an issue of two scientists being home grown 'Muslim' terrorists, because they aren't.

While the media went into great detail about the lives of the B.C, couple, no such story ran about Dr. Nielsen and his female Chinese assistant. Were they more than just lab partners?

Why would he risk his entire career? Was it  for love? How did she get away, was she a plant, did she seduce him as is common in spying. No research, no details were ever released. Go ahead Google it, nothing, zip, nada, all you can find about her is the story in press about the bust.

University of Montreal professor Christian Baron says he and his colleagues are wondering why Nielsen would take the risk of transporting such a readily available bacteria on a plane.
“Brucella is actually a bigger problem in Chinese agriculture than here [in Canada],” said Baron, who is the director of the university’s biochemistry department.
“I really don’t see what the reason would have been.”
The Chinese could easily have found their own bacteria in cattle that are widely infected with the disease in their own country, he sai

Now this is more than just lazy journalism, this is a media blackout it is also being downplayed by the RCMP and the Government.  Why? Because of Harper's new friendly relationship with China? Because this is another embarrassment surrounding the  CFIA?

Perhaps. But I believe it's because it's about commercialization of public research, the privatization and  selling of public research as intellectual property, something that the neo-liberals have been promoting and continue to promote for universities and other science and research facilities. it is that dark murky world of scientific research paid for by you and me but profiting others, the scientists and their pharmaceutical company allies and sponsors.

This story cries out for in depth coverage, it has all the elements of an espionage thriller, the potential to expose foreign spying in Canada and corporate espionage ala the Constant Gardner, and yet it has effectively disappeared from the news.

FOOTNOTES

1. RCMP intercepts dangerous pathogens from being exported out of the Country

OTTAWA – April 3, 2013 – The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has charged Dr. Klaus Nielsen and Ms. Wei Ling Yu, both former researchers with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), with Breach of Trust by a Public Officer. These charges stem from a criminal investigation called Project SENTIMENTAL, which was completed with the assistance of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

The matter was originally reported to the RCMP by the CFIA in March 2011. The investigation focused on Dr. Nielsen and Ms. Yu’s unlawful efforts to commercialize intellectual property belonging to the CFIA and a private commercial partner. 

On October 24, 2012, the RCMP with the assistance of the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) first responders intercepted Dr. Nielsen as he was heading to the Ottawa airport.  The RCMP’s Clandestine Laboratory Response Team, accompanied by the Ottawa Fire Services Hazardous Materials Response Team, arrested and searched Dr. Nielsen.  In his possession, Dr. Nielsen had 17 vials of pathogens he was attempting to export in an unsafe manner.  These vials were analyzed by the PHAC and found to contain live brucella bacteria that can infect livestock and humans.   Dr. Nielsen was arrested for Breach of Trust by a Public Officer and the unsafe transportation of a human pathogen. 

This complex investigation drew on resources from a variety of federal departments, law enforcement agencies and first responders. The RCMP, in collaboration with their partners, were able to quickly and efficiently mobilize and respond to this threat which helped minimize the public’s risk of exposure to these contagious substances.

Dr. Nielsen faces one charge under the Criminal Code and several under the Export and Import Permits Act, the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act and the Human Pathogens and Toxins Act. His next court appearance is scheduled on April 17, 2013 in Ottawa.

A Canada wide warrant has been issued for Ms. Yu.

-30-

2 Biological warfare[edit]

In 1954, B. suis became the first agent weaponized by the United States at its Pine Bluff Arsenal near Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Brucella species survive well in aerosols and resist drying. Brucella and all other remaining biological weapons in the U.S. arsenal were destroyed in 1971–72 when the Americam offensive biological warfare (BW) program was discontinued by order of President Richard Nixon.^[6]

The experimental American bacteriological warware program focused on three agents of the Brucella group:

• Porcine Brucellosis (Agent US)
• Bovine Brucellosis (Agent AB)
• Caprine Brucellosis (Agent AM)

"Agent US" was in advanced development by the end of World War II. When the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) wanted a biological warfare capability, the Chemical Corps offered "Agent US" in the M114 bomblet, based on the four-pound bursting bomblet that was developed for spreading anthrax during World War II. Though the capability was developed, operational testing indicated that the weapon was less than desirable, and the USAAF designed it as an interim capability until it could replaced by a more effective biological weapon.

The main drawbacks of the M114 with "Agent US" was that it was an incapacitating agent, whereas the administration of the USAAF wanted deadly weapons. Also the stability under storange was too low to allow for storing at forward air bases, and the logistical requirements to neutralize a target were far higher than originally planned. This would have required an unreasonable amount of logistical support.

Agents US and AB had a median infective dose of 500 organisms/person, and for Agent AM it was 300 organisms/person. The time-of-incubation was believed to be about two weeks, with a duration of infection of several months. The lethality estimate was based on epidemiological information at one to two percent. Agent AM was believed to be a more virulent disease, and a fatality rate of three percent was expected.

3 SEROLOGICAL DIAGNOSIS OF BRUCELLOSIS 

Nielsen K., Yu WL. 

Ottawa Laboratories (Fallowfield), Canadian Food Inspection Agency, 

Nepean, Ontario, Canada 

Review of Detection of Brucella sp. by Polymerase Chain Reaction

Wei Ling Yu and Klaus Nielsen

4. Treason - The Canadian Encyclopedia

 discloses, without lawful authority, military or scientific material to agents of a foreign state, if he or she knows or should know that the material may be used to impair Canada's safety or defence, 

The Week That Was

I took some time off this week. I could say I was being productive, well sort of. I read, I shopped for Xmas. and I got caught up in playing an online multiplayer role playing game; Fallen Sword.

In other words besides being busy at work I goofed off instead of blogging. Mind you that does not mean I did not pay attention to the wonderful world of politics this week. And so I will do a little update here of the week that was. Or at least my interpretation of it.

LIARS CLUB

Well after hearing Karlheinz Schrieber tell his side of the cash for Thiesen weapons systems story, apparently paying off Brian Mulroney after he left office but making the deal while he was in office. It got all very complicated. Before the Star Chamber of the Ethics Committee of Parliament Schrieber insisted that the Liberals had been wrong all along. As had Stevie Cameron. It had nothing to do with Air Bus. Nope it was all about Thiesen and their Light Armoured Vehicles that they wanted to manufacture in the Maritimes. It was about weapons. And Mulroney took cold hard cash to promote weapons. A weapons system that he himself kaboshed when it turned out that it would cost taxpayers a 100 million dollars.

So this week BM showed up before the Star Chamber and contradicted Schrieber. He didn't get $300,000 in thousand dollar bills, he got $225,000. And he kept $75,000, the initial retainer, in a safety deposit box. But he did eventually declare and pay taxes on $300,000. He did meet Schrieber twice while in office, once for coffee at 24 Sussex Drive and once at his PM get away cabin. But shucks that was just a social call, anyone of us could have visited him.

The whole thing showed that both these characters are liars and scoundrels. It just so happens that one of them was once the PM. The other a gun runner.

Now anywhere else in the world a gun runner putting a PM of a country on a retainer to sell weapons would raise an eyebrow or two.

But not in Canada. And it wasn't about Airbus. At least they both agreed on that. Nope it was about Theisen and promoting LAV's. And the deal was cooked up while Mulroney was still in office but concluded once he left. And with cold hard cash there is no paper trail.

Now lets not forget that this was the same Brian Mulroney who got appointed a director of Archer Daniel Midlands, and that company was plagued with a price fixing scandal at the time. And low and behold if ADM didn't buy out Robin Hood Mills of Canada, thanks to Mulroney's FTA with Reagan.

Thats the kind of guy Mulroney is and was. So we should be shocked that he would be a gunzel for a gunrunner?

CTV YOUR BIAS IS SHOWING

For weeks prior to and finally the week of the Star Chamber revelations of Karl and Brian, Craig Oliver of CTV Question Period and Mike Duffy sounded like Conservative hacks. First they complained this was all old news. Then as revelations were made by Karl, Mike dismissed them. Both of them characterized the hearings as a clown show. In fact they insisted, despite facts proving it was anything but, on reporting it as such. Now what got their knickers in a twist?

Surprising and shocking revelations that came from Karl as reported on all the other channels became irrelevant ramblings according Mike. He spent more time dismissing Karl than the Conservatives did.

SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Wednesday the Taser report on the RCMP was released but it was lost in all the news coverage of the 'Waiting For Brian' Story. On Thursday as the Mulroney Royal Entourage came before the Star Chamber, the Conservatives finally released their Pavier Report on Polling.

Remember that. Well this could be why they delayed the report and then released it on the day Brian was testifying. Tories spend more on polling now than Liberals did
Meanwhile Stockwell Day was nowhere to be found on Parliament Hill. Neither Wednesday when the damning Taser Report came out, calling it a lethal weapon.

RCMP watchdog demands tougher rules on Tasers
Canadians 10 times more likely to be Tasered to Death by Police then Americans

Nor was he around on Friday when the RCMP Investigation Report came out.

Task force says RCMP should be 'separate entity'


RCMP JUST ANOTHER PUBLIC SERVICE

The Task Force revealed that the RCMP is just another group of public sector workers. Yes there was the usual media and pundit comments about the iconic nature of the RCMP, blah, blah. But when you look closely at the report you see that the RCMP is no different than any other public sector workers. They are over worked, putting in unpaid overtime. The force has allocated for increased staffing but never hired personnel. RCMP officers are doing data entry that should have been done by data entry clerks, but of curse those positions were never filled. Working Alone is dangerous for most workers, and many provinces have Working Alone legislation. Of course the RCMP deaths recently in the North shows that these workers share something in common with their civilian counterparts. Due to cost savings, the bottom line, they are put in the way of danger that has ended up with fatalities. Cost cutting, cutbacks, unfilled positions are all the legacy of the neo-con attack on the public sector in the nineties. And the RCMP are public sector workers just like their civilian counterparts. The report talks about the need for civilian oversight, for making the RCMP autonomous and giving them access to the the oversight commission for complaints. What it failed to recommend was a real grievance procedure and an authentic new form of staff relations, that is they failed to recommend unionization of the RCMP.

CSIS BEAT THEM TO IT

The revelation that the CIA destroyed waterboarding torture tapes reminded me that CSIS did the same thing with its wire tapping of the Air India conspirators twenty years ago. Nice to know Canada leads the way. Of course the CIA says it did it to protect the identities of its agents. Did CSIS do it for the same reason?

HYUK, HYUK, IT'S HUCKABEE

As your faithful wag predicted here Huckabee has come from the second tier to be a real threat to the leading Republican Presidential Candidates. That's because they believed their own press. While Huckabee appeals directly to the base of the party. He is one of them. And while he is he is also a Red Tory. A socially liberal politician in right wing garb. The Republican establishment hates him and have begun attacking him, as have media pundits like MSNBC Chris Matthews, that reminds us Huckabee endorses the Second Amendment because folks need guns to protect themselves from the Government. Watch for more smears as Huckabee support rallies in Iowa.

On the Sunday Talk Shows south of the Border the has been McCain who polls below Paul sometimes and is neck and neck with Thompson for falling out of the top tier, is being lauded as the guy who will win New Hampshire. Don't count on it. I predict given New Hampshire's libertarian bent that Paul will surprise folks more than any McCain comeback. After all he raised $3 million dollars online, in one day. A record for any politician. And that money makes him richer than McCain. As for Thompson, glad he didn't give up his acting career.

As for Democrats, Iowa will go to the guy who looks like JFK and talks like RFK. No not Obama, John Edwards. He has the machine in the state, and is everyone's number two choice. In Iowa being number two makes you number one in the caucus's and he has the organization to pull it off. Look for an upset.

PATRIARCHY KILLS

The death of teenage girl in Toronto made headlines. Her father allegedly killed her for being, well a Canadian teenager. You see she rejected her 'religious' faith. Or at least the symbol of womens oppression in that faith.The headscarf. No she wasn't Amish. She was a Muslim. Heck she could have been Christian or Jewish, or a Hindu. It matters not. These are all patriarchal religions who believe in the Father God, and God is the Father. Hence women and children and animals remain chattel to the husband. Secular, pluralist society is being besieged by the identity politics of the oppressors. Thousands of years of religious oppression led to the enlightenment and the revolutionary modernism. Today the forces of humanism face a determined opposition from those who would proclaim their backwards anti-human morality as justified in the name of cultural understanding and inclusiveness. Religion is Political, and always has been, and the battle for freedom is about freedom from religion, not just freedom for religion. Those who would claim that it is only Islam that is intolerant should look to their own holy books, to the divisions between men and women in their synagogues, temples, and churches that exist today. This could have happened to any teenage girl in Canada whose parents are religious zealots. In fact it is the reason we also have young girls and women having babies while denying they are pregnant, which has often ended in tragedy.


There we go a week of rants in one day.




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Police Brutality

This is not just an issue of the weapons used by police, in particular the RCMP, such as tasers, pepper spray, batons or guns. It is about a police culture that sees citizens as bad guys and themselves as the good guys. We are all criminals in their eyes. They have forgotten their jobs are to 'serve and protect' the citizens not just the state or property owners.

This is the fourth taser related death in a month. It appears that the police believe it is okay to apply deadly force against those 'acting erratically', that is mentally disturbed. And you thought the death penalty was banned in Canada. Nor did you think it applied to people suffering from mental illness.

VANCOUVER - The RCMP has launched a number of investigations into the Saturday morning death of Robert Thurston Knipstrom, 36, four days after he was pepper-sprayed, Tasered and hit with a baton in an altercation with police. The incident is now being handled as an in-custody death, RCMP said in a news release.

"Because of the possibility that the police use of force could have been a factor in the individual's medical injuries, the RCMP began the in-custody-related investigative protocols from the very beginning," said the police release.

Knipstrom was taken to hospital in extremely critical condition after a confrontation with police at the EZ Rental Centre in Chilliwack, B.C., on Monday.

He had been seen driving dangerously through city streets, forcing other vehicles to avoid him. When police arrived, they said they found Knipstrom acting agitated and erratic. They used pepper spray, Tasers and police batons to try to restrain him, but were forced to call in backup when those tactics failed.

As my pal April Reign so aptly put it;

My family and I along with other activists from Bread and Roses attended the rally to remember Robert Dziekanski and to demand an investigation into his death.

As was stated at the rally this is no longer just about 4 officers, or TASER™’s this is about a culture and climate of political change which has allowed and encouraged the police to see the general public as an enemy to be subdued.

The culture of the police state has long existed, even before the Harper Law and Order Government came to power. It was always thus. The history of policing is the history of putting down protest, in particular working class protesters. Since its inception under Sir Robert Peel police replaced state militias whose purpose was to break up workers strikes and rallies.

The widespread distress accompanying the Napoleonic Wars had repercussions in Oxford. Food, money, and coal, bought with large sums subscribed by the city and university, were given or sold cheaply to the poor, but nevertheless violence flared sporadically because of high food prices.
In 1800 a troop of horse was sent to Oxford from Reading, and the local
militia was called out after countrymen had been intimidated in the market,
and the mob had threatened to attack the town hall and colleges; other poor townsmen terrorized farmers in neighbouring villages, forcing them to promise to sell their corn cheaply.
In 1814 J. I. Lockhart, the city's M.P., was forced to enter the city armed
after voting against the import of corn.
With the return of peace Oxford settled back to a more somnolent state, broken only rarely by such outbursts as the arrest, and subsequent rescue in Oxford, of those accused of the riots connected with the inclosure of Otmoor in 1830.
In 1856 many townsmen, disappointed of an official celebration on the ending of
the Crimean War, lit bonfires in the streets; one at Carfax aparently destroyed the
city stocks.
The last major riots occurred in 1867, in protest at an increase in the price
of bread, and in the wake of similar riots in the West Country. A detachment of
Guards was sent from Windsor, and peace restored by a reduction in bread prices.

• 1815 Victory at the Battle of Waterloo brings peace to Europe. Bands of demobbed soldiers roam the countryside surviving by begging. A group of ex-soldiers camp in the Forest of Bere, in an area now known as, 'Waterlooville'.

• 1829 Metropolitan Police Act - Robert Peel, Home Secretary forms Metropolitan Police who also police naval dockyards in areas like Portsmouth.
• 1829 Invention - Stephenson's 'The Rocket' steam train wins trials.
• 1830 Violent 'Swing' riots by farm workers in southern England seeking higher wages and the end to mechanisation - 9 executed, hundreds transported or imprisoned
• 1830 Selborne and Headley Workhouse riots. William IV succeeds George IV as King
• 1830 Employment law limits 12 -18 year olds to maximum of 12 hours work a day, 9 to 13 yr. olds to 9 hours
• 1832 - 1889 Winchester City Police formed and year of the Great Reform Act doubling the number of people eligible to vote
• 1834 Abolition of Slavery and The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 - An Act for the Amendment and better Administration of the Laws relating to the Poor in England and Wales is one of the most significant pieces of social legislation in British history. Read about the Workhouse
• 1835 Municipal Corporations Act - Boroughs to appoint Watch Committees

Community policing does not mean the police are part of the community or under community control quite the contrary it means they police 'the community'. It is class war by any other name.

The history of modern law enforcement began 166 years ago with the
formation of the London Metropolitan Police District in 1829. By
creating a new police force, the British Parliament hoped to address the
soaring crime rate in and around the nation's capital, attributed at the
time to rapid urban growth, unchecked immigration, poverty, alcoholism,
radical political groups, poor infrastructure, unsupervised juveniles,
and lenient judges. The principles adopted by Sir Robert Peel, the first
chief of the London Metropolitan Police, for his new "bobbies" have
served as the traditional model for all British and American police
forces ever since. These principles include the use of crime rates to
determine the effectiveness of the police; the importance of a centrally
located, publicly accessible police headquarters; and the value of
proper recruitment, selection, and training.

Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire, by Philippa Levine. New York, Routledge, 2003. ix, 480pp. $104.95 US (cloth), $26.95 US (paper).

A wealth of material is covered, though her findings can be reduced to what many scholars have begun to agree upon: that colonies were seen as posing a persistent threat of moral degradation, that European women merited protection while "native" women were to be controlled, that European men complicated matters through their symbolism of strength yet lascivious lives, that the realm of sexuality was a constant worry given its ready possibility of racial and other hierarchical transgression.

The RCMP's inglorious history as the State Police and Policing for the State was pacification of the West for the CPR control of the aboriginal and metis population, and includes massacres of working people, such as in Estevan, Saskatchewan during a miners protest in the 1930's.

And of course who can forget their actions in Quebec in the seventies or infiltration of the Anti-War movement and the Left with agent provocateurs, which produced a scandal leading to the creation of that other State Police Agency; CSIS.

The State is against the people it functions for the good of capitalism, as does its police who view property as more important than people.

These cases are not about tasers perse but about out and out police brutality, the police culture of self investigation and the lack of civilian oversight of all police forces including the RCMP. It is also another reason for unionizing the RCMP.

It is also the greatest chink in the Law and Order armour of the Harper Government.

The public demonstrations this weekend protesting the death of Robert Dziekanski show that people are not being sucked in by the Harper Law and Order agenda. In fact it is a breathe of fresh air to see folks finally protesting and challenging the police who have forgotten whom they serve and protect; the very citizens they view as their enemy.



SEE:

Video Not Taser Creates Inquiry

Repeated Cover-ups by Mounted Police

Conservative Governments Kill Workers

Police Black Bloc

Canada’s Long History of Criminalizing Dissent

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Video Not Taser Creates Inquiry

B.C. is calling for an inquiry to the Taser death of a Polish immigrant at the Vancouver airport. Alberta is reviewing police procedures for use of tasers. Stockwell Day says hey its all okay because it was only one death from a taser, while thousands die annually from drunk drivers.

All this sturm and drang is not because Robert Dziekanski died from police brutality and their use of a taser. Nope. It's because a video showing the police brutality was aired world wide. A video the RCMP attempted to suppress.

It is now being reported that there was an airport worker present who spoke Polish who could have helped Mr. Dzienkanski it now turns out.

And after much haranguing in the house Day finally admits he has a report from the Canadian Border Service and then he post dates his comments to say he asked for it from day one. Oh yeah right.

Canada Border Services has so far declined to comment on what happened during the 6 ½ hours Mr. Dziekanski spent inside the airport's international baggage hall, an area that falls under CBSA jurisdiction.

Day noted that the RCMP probe into the case could result in criminal charges. He also highlighted the fact he ordered a review of Taser-use policy a few days after Dziekanski's death.

Asked Tuesday if he would apologize for the border agency's handling of Dziekanski's arrival, Day said he's sorry.

"I'm sorry it happened. I'm sure all Canadians are sorry it happened . . . This is a very serious incident that took place."

The Canada Border Services Agency has been silent as to how Dziekanski went apparently unnoticed for several hours in the baggage area of the airport.

No one cared, no one did anything until this video came out. A month after the fact.

And this is not the only case that it has taken a citizen video on the internet to force a police investigation. It is becoming more common.

A dashboard camera video posted on YouTube less than 24 hours ago showing a Utah Highway Patrol officer firing a Taser at a driver he stopped for speeding has prompted authorities there to expedite an internal investigation into the incident.

"We've known about the incident since it occurred," Cameron Roden, a spokesman for the Utah Highway Patrol, told ABC News. "But with it coming out on the Internet, we're trying to move the investigation along."

And the fact is that police use of tasers is justified by the cops themselves. They have little civilian or independent research done on the use of tasers prior to their use, it always after the fact. The taser company has sponsored the research saying they are safe. Other research has been conducted by pro police advocates again showing tasers are an alternative to lethal force.

The police wanted tasers as an alternative to lethal force, not as an alternative to pepper spray which they also carry, has decided in certain situations known only to themselves it will be the weapon of first choice. It is the logic of the cops; shoot first ask questions later.

A Regina psychiatrist believes that police should deal with aggression by talking, not by using a conducted energy device (CED) such as a Taser.

"Tasering is an easy option but it's not the only option," said Dr. Dhanapal Natarajan, a member of the board of directors of the Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA).

"We deal with aggressive patients all the time in the psych unit, but we talk to them. Talking is more important than straight away resorting to shooting a Taser."

This is the problem the police determine the safety of the weapon and its use; when, where, and how.

Hospital patient in Prince George, BC subdued by police Taser

While the facts surrounding the death of a young Frederick man are still emerging, law enforcement officials insist that Tasers are safe and effective.

It wasn't lightning that struck Jarrel Gray, 20, early Sunday morning. It wasn't a bullet, a knife or a blow.

It was one shock, according to Sheriff Chuck Jenkins, at a low voltage for five seconds that dropped him to the ground. A few hours later, he was dead.

The sister of a New Brunswick man who died after police repeatedly shocked him with a Taser says the devices should be banned across Canada until their safety can be proven.

Karen Geldart of Moncton, N.B., said Wednesday the furor over the death of a Polish man who was stunned with a police Taser at Vancouver International Airport is vindicating concerns she has had since her brother Kevin Geldart died in 2005.

Geldart, 34, died in a Moncton, N.B., bar after a confrontation with four RCMP officers. He was shocked so often, including to his head, that witnesses said the smell of burning flesh made it hard to breathe.

"I don't want to sound macabre, but I'm satisfied there has been such a public outcry," Geldart said, referring to the national outpouring of concern over the videotaped death of Polish citizen, Robert Dziekanski, on Oct. 14.

"I feel somewhat vindicated. Kevin, I believe, died in vain because other deaths occurred after he died. Let's hope that's not the case with Mr. Dziekanski's death."

Geldart said there should be a single, comprehensive and national review of the use of Tasers by all police forces in Canada.

We've been told that tasers are a useful tool for law enforcement to subdue agitated people.

But in the last two days in Jacksonville, Florida tasering has resulted in two deaths.

In the latest case, a man got into a wreck in the Springfield area Tuesday afternoon. The driver then got out of his vehicle and began fighting with another man.

In Vancouver four burly police officers took down Mr. Dziekanski, they applied a taser gun to his neck, they also apparently kneeled on him. Now the taser was not required from what we saw on the video because they already held him down. He was far less agitated than the student in Florida whose video we saw as he cried out don't taser me bro.

The police use a variety of dangerous disabling tactics, one is the carotid choke hold that has caused injury and deaths.

But the real issue is that it is the police that determine what weapons or physical restraint tactics they will use. There is no ethical oversight by a civilian authority, even the State does not oversee the police, it takes their word for whatever they do.

And that is the bigger issue here. Who polices the police.

This then is a step in the right direction.

- The man who will head a review of the RCMP's use of tasers following the death of a Polish visitor in the Vancouver airport says he is concerned they may be deployed too quickly and too often.

Paul Kennedy, chairman of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, said yesterday that there have been instances "where I thought it was being used inappropriately at too early a level of intervention."

Through the review ordered this week by Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, Mr. Kennedy said he wants to get a sense of whether RCMP "policy and their model in terms of recourse to force is appropriate."

And he wants to find out whether officers "have thought about other devices. Have they been told that this is either a last resort or should be used at the higher end in terms of intervention?"

The inappropriate use of tasers is not a new concern for Mr. Kennedy. In his annual report tabled in June, he said one taser-firing incident led him to conclude that a review of the weapons was necessary.

Mr. Kennedy pointed to the case of an intoxicated woman - he didn't name her - who was tasered by an RCMP officer and taken to the police station.

"That was okay in the first instance," he said. But then "she is in the station and the device is used against her again. It's a woman handcuffed in a station when there were other officers there. I said that is inappropriate in my belief. The commissioner agreed with me."

The review, Mr. Kennedy said, will provide an opportunity to look at the full range of cases in which they have been used and determine whether the rules are clear and are being followed.

SEE:

He Was Polish

Policing Mental Illness

Cops and Tasers

Ban Tasers

Death by Taser

Take Tasers Away from Cops

The Market Fazers Taser

State Security Is A Secure State

Policing the Police

A Tale Of Two Whyte Avenues

Ban Handguns From Cops

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
taser, tasers, Paul Pritchard , cops, airport, Dziekanski, police brutality, RCMP, death by taser, police, Vancouver,

He Was Polish

Lots of news coverage of the deadly police brutality at the Vancouver International Airport last month. Thanks to the release of of the video the RCMP attempted to suppress. It shows four, count em four, big burley cops jumping and tasering a Polish man who was confused and lost. Because he was speaking gibberish and was 'visibly upset'. That is he was speaking Polish and he was lost and not getting any help from airport staff.

Officers calm as they fired tasers, man who shot video says

Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski is seen detained by police in the arrivals area of the Vancouver airport in this video grab on October 14, 2007. A video shot and released to media by Victoria resident Paul Pritchard shows that Dziekanski did not resist or confront police before officers tasered him. Poland criticized Canadian police on Thursday for using stun guns to shoot an unarmed Dziekanski who then collapsed and died.

The decision by the police to subdue Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport with a Taser was "inappropriate" because the four officers present should have been able to physically control him, says an American policing expert.

After watching the video of Dziekanski's death, Michael Lyman said that the police should have been able to restrain the Polish visitor using their hands.

"I don't even think batons or mace would have been necessary given that there were four officers on the scene."

And it appears no-one could help him because well he spoke a foreign language; Polish. Which is a Slavic derivative not unlike umm say Russian or Ukrainian. In Vancouver. Home to many Russians, Ukrainians and Poles.In B.C. Home of the Russian speaking Doukhabours. The Doukhabours have been subjected to being called terrorists and attack by the RCMP. In Western Canada, we have the Ukrainian Diaspora as well as all the Polish/Berman speaking Displaced Persons who arrived after WWII. In a Western Canadian International airport no one could speak Polish.

When airport security officials first appear, passengers can be heard shouting to them that Mr. Dziekanski did not understand English. One woman, who the tape shows attempting to calm Mr. Dziekanski at one point, suggests that a Russian interpreter be summoned to help the confused man.

What's wrong with this picture? Airport security indeed. In all the sturm and drang about security whatever happened to Customer Relations. Indeed it would seem that to serve an international clientèle one should have interpreters. Of course they probably have them for Asian customers. No one expects Polish immigrants to arrive in Vancouver.


This reminds me of a case in Alberta many years ago when it was discovered that a poor Polish man had spent years in Alberta Hospital, the provincial mental hospital, because he was, well Polish. And none of the doctors or nurses could speak Polish. In Alberta. Home of many Polish and Ukrainians. None of the staff could speak Polish. So they locked him away as a schizophrenic supposedly speaking gibberish. Until one day a visitor came to see a relative and began a conversation with the poor man, in Polish. Much to the hospital and governments embarrassment they had confined someone who was perfectly sane but happened to be Polish. He was released. In Vancouver the poor Polish man is dead.

And we could wait years for a medical inquiry because when it comes to police brutality B.C. backs the cops. Like in this poor mans case.

Frank Paul spent the last night of his life crawling on his hands and knees at the police station, from where he was dragged to a police wagon and then dumped, drunk and soaking wet, in a back alley where he died.

But Paul's family heard a starkly different explanation from police when they were finally called about his death on the night of Dec. 6, 1998.

"They said he died in a hit-and-run and that he was found in a ditch,'' Paul's cousin, Peggy Clement, said from the New Brunswick community of Elsipogtog, formerly known as Big Cove.

"And he died in early December but it was the middle of January by the time we received word he had died,'' she said.

On Tuesday, almost a decade after the family found out about Paul's death, Clement will be the first witness to testify in Vancouver at a long-awaited inquiry into what happened the night he died.

The B.C. government ordered the inquiry after years of questions about why police dumped the heavily intoxicated aboriginal man in an alley.

That was only after several aboriginal groups, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and the provincial Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner pushed relentlessly to have Paul's death examined at a public inquiry.

Unfortunately for him no one was around with a digital cam to document the police brutality and abuse. In this case someone was and since it made the news we can hope that justice will be not only be seen to be done but done faster.

With the release of the video of this out and out police brutality Canadians are shaken up. Again.

Last time it was the famous RCMP pepper spraying incident also in Vancouver during the Anti-APEC demonstrations. Once again the ugly face of police excess was shown on the news.



This time though the revulsion is even turning up on the right wing blogs. And on the right wing talk shows. Usually the bastion of the law and order types who are unquestioning defenders of the cops.

Mike Duffy Live: Radio talk show hosts discuss police conduct after the Taser incident

Canadians universally are questioning this incident and the use of tasers by the cops. And it's about time.

Canada orders Taser review after video of death

SEE:

Policing Mental Illness

Cops and Tasers

Ban Tasers

Death by Taser

Take Tasers Away from Cops

The Market Fazers Taser

State Security Is A Secure State

Policing the Police

A Tale Of Two Whyte Avenues

Ban Handguns From Cops

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
taser, tasers, Paul Pritchard , cops, airport, Dziekanski, police brutality, RCMP, death by taser, police, Vancouver,