Police  Offenders  are  often  treated  with  kid  gloves  (Part I)

A former Royal Canadian Mounted Police (federal police) serving in Kelowna, British Columbia Canada kicked an innocent man in the face while the man was on his knees. Previously, the man who was kicked had been in a car accident and suffered brain injuries—a fact that the officer was aware of. The officer, Geoff Mantler pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm for kicking Buddy Tavares in his face during an arrest in the Okanagan city two years ago. The arrest, which was caught on video by a bystander, showed Mantler kicking the man as he was complying with police orders to get down on the ground. According to Tavares, “He’s (Mantler) got a list of assaults longer than my arm. It’s a long list; no convictions. So you can do whatever you want as long as you’ve got a good lawyer.”

Assault causing bodily harm is a serious crime in Canada so what did this ex-cop    (he resigned from the force) receive in court? He was given a suspended sentence with a requirement that he report to a probation officer once a month. 

Now let’s compare that sentence with one that was given to a woman in Saskatchewan, Canada in which she spat in the face of a police officer. Spitting in someone’s face is considered a crime in Canada and it is a disgusting act and such an offender should be punished. She was sent to jail for four months. I don’t have a problem with that sentence but when you compare the sentences of spitting in a police officer’s face with a police officer kicking a brain damaged person in his face, there is definitely something wrong with our system of justice. Comparing the two sentences, the woman was kicked in the guts while the officer was given a slap on the wrist.

Consider what this police officer’s lawyer,  Neville McDougall whimpered in court on behalf of this former police thug.  “All of the officers that attended were inexperienced. I haven’t seen anything from management that they’ve stepped up and said we erred here, too.” How does that excuse what his client did? He blamed the RCMP for inadequate training of its officers. Is he suggesting that the police trainees should be instructed not to kick a cooperating suspect in his face when you know that he is already brain damaged? Give me a break!

One of the most horrendous cases of abuse conducted by RCMP police officers took place at the Vancouver International Airport on October 14, 2007 when several of them tasered a Polish man to death. Dziekański had flown from Poland to Vancouver to visit his mother and because he couldn’t speak or read English, he wandered around the airport for hours trying to find his mother who had been waiting for him at the reception area. Finally, Airport staff who couldn’t find him told his mother that he was not at the airport so she returned to Kamloops at about 10 p.m., believing her son had missed his flight.

When Dziekański left the Customs hall, he became visibly agitated. Bystanders and airport security guards were unable to communicate with him because he did not speak English. He used chairs to prop open the one-way doors between a Customs clearing area and a public lounge and at one point in frustration, he threw a computer and a small table to the floor before the police arrived. When the RCMP police officers arrived, they saw the frustrated man near a counter. Shortly thereafter, about 25 seconds after arriving at the scene, Corporal Robinson ordered the Taser to be used. Constable Millington then tasered Dziekański. He began to convulse and then he was tasered several more times after falling to the ground, where the four officers pinned, handcuffed and then continued to taser him.

One eyewitness, who recorded the incident on her cellphone, told CBC News that Dziekański had been tasered four times. She said, "The third and fourth ones were at the same time" delivered by the officers at Dziekański’s right and left, just before Dziekański fell.” The fifth time he was tasered was probably when he was lying on the floor.

 

Now one is forced to ask this question, “Why was it necessary to taser the man after he had already fallen to the ground? That question was is easy to answer—it wasn’t necessary at all. As far as I am concerned, these officers were cowards. There were enough of them to tackle the man without having to taser him. Particularly contentious is that the RCMP officers made no attempt to defuse or gain control of the situation before resorting to the Taser. Those police thugs repeatedly deployed the taser against Dziekański without justification and separately failed to adequately reassess the situation before further deploying it.

 

Why was he tasered after he was already down on the floor convulsing? In my opinion, Those thousands of volts of electricity fired into the man’s body was to punish him for resisting the officers. I honestly can’t think of another reason for tasering the man like that that would be necessary or even justified. 

 

Dziekański writhed and screamed before he stopped moving. Cpl. Benjamin Monty Robinson stated he then checked for a pulse, and then said that Dziekański heart had stopped. Testimony from the other RCMP officers stated however that they never saw anyone including Robinson check for a pulse. Worse yet, Dziekański did not receive CPR until paramedics arrived on the scene approximately 15 minutes later. They were unable to revive him and pronounced him dead at the scene.

                                                                                               

Did the RCMP believe that what those officers did was proper? I hardly think so. Let me explain why I have arrived at that conclusion.

 

The entire event was recorded by Paul Pritchard, another traveler who was at the airport. Pritchard handed his camera and the video to police who told him that they would return the video within 48 hours. Instead, they returned the camera with a new memory card and kept the original with the video, saying they needed it to preserve the integrity of the investigation. They claimed witness statements would be tainted if they viewed the video before being interviewed by police. Pritchard went to court to obtain the video, which he then released to the media on November 14, 2007.

Do you really believe that they intended to return the video after they made a copy of it?  If you do, may I suggest that you subscribe to the Flat Earth Society journal. After the video was made available, an RCMP spokesperson cautioned the public to reserve judgment against the police because the video represents “just one small piece of evidence, one person's view.” Hey, dummy. That one person’s video view is all that is necessary to convict those police thugs of a crime.                       

Before the video was released to the public, the RCMP repeatedly claimed that only three officers were at the scene. There were actually four officers at the scene. The RCMP also said that they did not use pepper spray because of the risk it would have posed to bystanders. The video however clearly shows that the incident occurred in an area separated from bystanders by a glass wall. An RCMP spokesperson later stated that batons were not used, which was also contradicted by the video.

 

An RCMP spokesman, Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre, was heavily criticized for providing a false version of events prior to the public release of the video. He stated that Dziekański “continued to throw things around and yell and scream.” after the arrival of the police officers, which was later revealed by the video to be a false statement to the public.

 

Typically, the RCMP attempted to cover up the crime committed by those four RCMP police thugs and their efforts of a cover up were ridiculous. I strongly suspect that those RCMP spokespersons believed that the video would never be seen by the public.    

On December 12, 2008, the Criminal Justice Branch of British Columbia issued a statement, finding that although the RCMP officers' efforts to restrain Dziekański were a contributing cause of his death, the force they used to subdue and restrain him was reasonable and necessary in all the circumstances; thus there would not be a substantial likelihood of conviction of the officers in connection with the incident and accordingly criminal charges were not approved.                                                     

Why did the Criminal Justice Branch of British Columbia make such an asinine statement to the public?   

 

What happened to those four police thugs? Three of the officers remain on duty elsewhere in Canada, while their supervisor, Corporal Benjamin Robinson, resigned from the force on July 20, 2012 in anticipation of a sentencing hearing after being found guilty of obstruction of justice stemming from the death of a 21-year old Vancouver man. He was later officially discharged from the RCMP. On July 27, 2012, the former RCMP officer Cpl. Benjamin Robinson was sentenced to a one-year conditional term for his obstruction of justice conviction in connection with the October 2008 accident that killed a 21-year-old. It meant that he would have to serve one month under house arrest, with the remainder under the supervision of a probation officer. The maximum penalty for that offence is 10 years in prison. For a police officer to obstruct justice, it is a very serious offence. He should have been punished more severely. It escapes me as to how this thug managed to get into the police force in the first place. It tells you just how lax the recruitment of RCMP police officers procedures had been.   

 

Robinson’s problems are just begining to unfold. He and the other three thugs in the Dziekański fiasco are facing charges of perjury. The officers; Const. Bill Bentley, Const. Kwesi Millington, Const. Gerry Rundell and Cpl. Benjamin Robinson are accused of lying during the testimony they gave during a public inquiry into Dziekanski's death. Further, on April 8, 2013, the coroner ruled that the death of Dziekański was a homicide. Let’s see if the Criminal Justice Branch of British Columbia will act and charge these four thugs with manslaughter—the crime brought about as a direct result of causing the death of Dziekański. If not, then the people in that ministry that have the obligation to make that decision are no different than those three police thugs—cowards, one and all.

 

I will keep you up to date as these events unfold as UPDATES at the bottom of this article.