Mounties in Dziekanski Taser case charged with perjury

Bout time. Should've been murder charges.

More like manslaughter.

Perjury. What about police brutality? I normally support the police, as they deal with more shit daily that most of us would run and hide from, but this case got me angry from the beginning. If they would have bothered to use their power to summon a person that could speak to the man in Polish, all this could have been avoided. Instead, they zapped him many times with the tasers.

Sometimes I think police are a little short on the diplomacy in certain situations, and to quick to pull out the new toy and have a go.

I'm tired of needless death.

-J.

I think perjury is the right charge, and I'm more concerned about that they lied than what they did to Dziekanski. In the latter case, they were just following their training that told them Tasers were non-lethal. Training in this regard should be addressed, and I believe it has been. But perjury subverts justice. It's not only these guys who should be charged, but their superiors who counselled them to commit perjury or committed perjury themselves.

Charge them, convict them, jail them. Good riddance.

You don't have a great grasp of the law do you?

You don't have a great grasp of the law do you?

Do you think manslaughter charges might have been appropriate?

On what grounds Gunny?

I guess if one considers the act of multiple tasering resulted in death, I wondered why they didn't look at those multiple taserings, determine if they were indeed legal or illegal, and then look at manslaughter if they determined the taserings were not legal.

I guess they must have look at the multiple taserings as legal.

Prior to this unfortunate event, Canadian police were told multiple discharges of a taser into a subject were harmless. Since 2007 Taser International have changed their guidelines to say that more than two discharges should entail medical supervision.

The fact that these RCMP plonkers lied about what happened is an extra bad bit. But murder/manslaughter?

Do you really think these idiots meant to kill this other idiot?

Well, I ain't a lawyer, but manslaughter doesn't mean they wanted to kill the guy. I think manslaughter occurs when there is death due to negligence or an illegal act that the perp didn't believe would cause a death.

These guys didn't want to kill Dziekanski, however, their acts of multiple tasering resulted in his death. Negligance or illegal tasering, I would have thought that should have been looked at.

Since nothing but perjury is being looked at, I guess they couldn't make anything else stick.

Pity, I think.

Well, I ain't a lawyer, but manslaughter doesn't mean they wanted to kill the guy. I think manslaughter occurs when there is death due to negligence or an illegal act that the perp didn't believe would cause a death.

These guys didn't want to kill Dziekanski, however, their acts of multiple tasering resulted in his death. Negligance or illegal tasering, I would have thought that should have been looked at.

Since nothing but perjury is being looked at, I guess they couldn't make anything else stick.

Pity, I think.

IMO, In that case, there was no negligence on part of the officers besides lying about it after the fact.

They were given a tool to 'safely' subdue a subject and it caused his death.

Could they have been all warm and fuzzy and brought in an interpreter while this dude wandered around holding furniture....sure, but they took him down in what they were told is a safe effective method.

Make them face the music on purgery, that's it.

The fact that these RCMP plonkers lied about what happened is an extra bad bit. But murder/manslaughter? There has to be an amount of culpable negligence to prove manslaughter. It's just not there on this case.

Do you not think that the finest legal minds in BC (and the Crown Attorneys) didn’t think of this?

At the end of the day,four badly trained Mounties took down a guy with rather a few issues and he died.

They used the Taser according to the manufacturers specs of 2007 which was a tad wrong.

Bad training plus bad weapons advice doesn’t equal manslaughter. Otherwise they would have been charged with it.

Why is it a pity that they couldn't do more?

Also, the reason murder charges/manslaughter charges wouldn't/won't stick is that the death of Dziekanski wasn't culpable homicide because tasering him was done for a lawful purpose, as in S. 229(c). Once culpable homicide is off the table, murder and manslaughter aren't applicable anymore.

Criminal negligence causing death would also be hard to prove, because they call for medical assistance, just not soon enough. Now, is that because they were criminally negligent or because they believed Taser International that tasering was harmless and they didn't conceive he could be in great medical distress? Remember, the onus is on the Crown to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officers showed a "wanton or reckless disregard" for Dziekanski's life as per S. 219.

If they're convicted of perjury, they're done as officers.