Vancouver Man Dies After Taser

[Lord Poe]

Video of the incident:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHKk5qQRzL4

Here's a little advice for everyone:

1. If you act uncivil in a public place, chances are, the cops will be called. The police aren't grievance councelors who want to ask you why you're having a bad day. If your actions are so disruptive that police need to be dispatched, THAT'S YOUR FUCKING FAULT.

2. If / when the police are called to deal with you, COOPERATE. Don't want to get tasered? COOPERATE. Don't want to get a beat down? COOPERATE.

EDIT: This happened October 14th. Relevant links can be found on the sidebar of the video.

[Alex Moon]

I would imagine that drugs were involved. A friend who worked for the Glendale PD saw her department catch shit a few years ago when a man died after being tasered. What the media didn't seem eager to report was the fact that the man had been high on numerous drugs, and that's what killed him.

[Havok]

I thought that he also couldn't speak English? That may have contributed to the situation.

[Meest]

I thought that he also couldn't speak English? That may have contributed to the situation.

Not being able to speak English doesn't mean you toss chairs into walls and glass windows etc. Is it so hard to get some translator or help, even if he can't say "no speak English" or whatever just him going to a help desk would probably lead to him getting some help. It was reported he was there for 10 hours and was in the wrong area to get picked up. Not sure what's a bigger issue, him not seeking help or airport staff not trying to help him, would think a guy standing around for 10 hours might get suspicious.

[Lord Poe]

I thought that he also couldn't speak English? That may have contributed to the situation.

Not being able to speak English doesn't mean you toss chairs into walls and glass windows etc.

Agreed. If I find myself in France, and a couple of non english speaking cops come up to me, clearly wanting to detain me for some reason, you bet your ass I'm going to cooperate.

[Lisa]

news story from the CBC
He's actually a polish immigrant, not a vancouver native.

An eyewitness's video recording of a man dying after being stunned with a Taser by police on Oct. 14 at Vancouver International Airport has been released to the public.

Robert Dziekanski is jolted by a shot from an RCMP Taser.
(Paul Pritchard)
The 10-minute video recording clearly shows four RCMP officers talking to Robert Dziekanski while he is standing with his back to a counter and with his arms lowered by his sides, but his hands are not visible.

About 25 seconds after police enter the secure area where he is, there is a loud crack that sounds like a Taser shot, followed by Dziekanski screaming and convulsing as he stumbles and falls to the floor.

Another loud crack can be heard as an officer appears to fire one more Taser shot into Dziekanski.

As the officers kneel on top of Dziekanski and handcuff him, he continues to scream and convulse on the floor.

One officer is heard to say, "Hit him again. Hit him again," and there is another loud cracking sound.

Police have said only two Taser shots were fired, but a witness said she heard up to four Taser shots.

Robert Dziekanski falls to the floor as an RCMP officer looks on.
(Paul Pritchard)
A minute and half after the first Taser shot was fired Dziekanski stops moaning and convulsing and becomes still and silent.

Shortly after, the officers appear to be checking his condition and one officer is heard to say, "code red."

The video ends shortly after.

Minutes later, ambulance attendants arrived but their efforts to revive Dziekanski were unsuccessful and he was declared dead.

RCMP spokesman Cpl. Dale Carr said no one can judge what happened to Dziekanski by just watching the video.

"It's just one piece of evidence, one person's view. There are many people that we have spoken to," RCMP spokesman Cpl. Dale Carr said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

Four RCMP officers subdue Robert Dziekanski after stunning him with a Taser on Oct. 14 at Vancouver airport.
(Paul Pritchard)
"What I urge is that those watching the video, take note of that. Put what they've seen aside for the time being. And wait to hear the totality of the evidence at the time of the inquest," Carr said.

But retired superintendent Ron Foyle, a 33-year veteran of the Vancouver police who saw the video tape, said he didn't know "why it ever became a police incident."

"It didn't seem that he made any threatening gestures towards them," Foyle said.

Much of the video was shot through the glass walls that separate the international arrivals lounge from a secure area outside the Canada Customs exit.

The video was recorded in three segments. The first segment shows Dziekanski before police arrive.

He is clearly agitated, yelling in Polish, and appears to be sweating. He can be seen taking office chairs and putting them in front of the security doors. He then picks up a small table, which he holds, while a woman in the arrivals lounge calmly speaks to him in apparent effort to calm him down.

Before police arrived, Robert Dziekanski picked up a small table and put it in the doorway between the customs exit area and a public lounge.
(Paul Pritchard)
In the second segment, Dziekanski picks up a computer and throws it to the ground. Three airport personnel arrive and block the exit from the secure area, but Dziekanski retreats inside and does not threaten them.

Officers arrive in lounge

Then four RCMP officers arrive in the lounge. Someone can be heard mentioning the word Tasers.

Someone replies, "Yes," as the officers approach the security doors.

Police have said repeatedly that there were only three RCMP officers involved in the incident, but the video shows four men in RCMP uniforms.

People in the lounge can be heard clearly telling the police Dziekanski speaks no English, only Russian. His mother later said he only spoke Polish.

Police enter the secure area with no problems and can be seen with Dziekanski standing calmly talking with officers. They appear to direct him to stand against a wall, which he does.

As he is standing there, one of the officers shoots him with a Taser.

RCMP officers have also said police did not use pepper spray because of the large number of people at the airport at the time. But the video shows Dziekanski standing alone with the four officers in an otherwise empty area, which is separated from the public area by a thick glass wall.

Pritchard hired lawyer

Paul Pritchard, right, accompanied by his lawyer, Paul Pearson, at a recent press conference, said that he feels police are trying to manipulate the truth.
(CBC)
Paul Pritchard shot the video with his digital camera, but afterward he surrendered it to police for their investigation on a promise that they would return it within 48 hours.

The next day, police told Pritchard they would not be returning the recording as promised.

Carr previously stated investigators kept the video longer than they anticipated in order to protect the integrity of the police investigation while they interviewed witnesses.

Saying he feared a coverup by police, Pritchard then engaged a lawyer to start legal proceedings to reclaim the recording. Police returned the recording to him on Wednesday.

Dziekanski, 40, died on Oct. 14, hours after he arrived at Vancouver International Airport. He was on his way to Kamloops to live with his mother in the B.C. Interior.

Robert Dziekanski with his mother Zofia Cisowski in Poland, before she emigrated to Canada.
The Polish immigrant arrived from Europe the previous day around 4 p.m., but for some unknown reason he did not clear customs until after midnight.

Dziekanski's mother had already returned home to Kamloops after waiting for several hours at the airport. She claims airport officials offered her no help locating her son.

The RCMP's integrated homicide investigation team, the B.C. coroner's service, the Vancouver International Airport Authority and the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP are each conducting their own investigations into the incident.

[TheKwas]

It's great how everyone here has managed to jump to conclusions before bothering with the details.

The facts as I understand them:
-The man is a Polish immigrant who expected to see his mother who he hasn't seen in years as soon as he arrived in Canada (he's an only child)
-They agreed to meet in the 'secure' room because the man doesn't speak a word of English.
-The mother later finds out that she isn't allowed in said secure room, all attempts to plea with airport officials fail, all attempts to have messages sent to the Polish Man also end up going nowhere
-The man ends up waiting in this secure room for 10 hours without water or food and no airport staff actually trying to help him. Assuming he didn't sleep that much on his flight from Poland to Germany to Canada, he's not in the best of mental shape to begin with.
-All attempts to use the Airport telephones to find translators (often with the help of other airport users) fail, as there are no Polish translators on hand for him to utilize.
-Guy must be utterly frustrated now, and starts placing chairs in doorways, assumingly to attract attention to his plight.
-Guy smashes a computer in anger
-RCMP show up (yelling), ignore all citizen attempts to inform them about the situation (He doesn't speak english, he's been trapped here for hours, ect)
-The man is startled but shows no signs of resistance. He puts up his hands (assumingly as a sign of co-operation) and moves towards the wall as the police instruct. He is tasered as soon as he reaches the wall and is tackled.
-He resists arrest once on the ground (who wouldn't at this point, you just got tasered for seemingly no reason by a bunch of foreigner police), provoking another tasering.
-Man dies shortly after 2nd taser.

The first tasering occurs within seconds of the police arriving on the scene.
This is an obvious case of police misconduct as far as I can see. Just because you placed some chairs in a doorway and you smashed a computer after being neglected for 10 months doesn't mean you should be tasered as punishment.

The RCMP rules of conduct generally follow this:
Tasers are classified as intermediate objects, meaning they are only to be used in cases of combative and more serious cases of resistant subjects. This man can not seriously be considered as either.

[loomer]

They tasered him in the fucking back, when he was walking away calmly. What the fuck is that?

[mr friendly guy]

He may have been a dick for slamming a chair against the door, however as far as I can tell, when the police approached him he had quietened down and looked to be co-operating. In which case I can't understand why he needed to be tasered.

[Phantasee]

There's a video, apparently, that shows him being Tasered 30 seconds into the meeting with the RCMP. It was front page news yesterday in the Edmonton Journal. They had screencaps of the video.

[Julhelm]

The problem with tasers is that they turn closet sadists into fullblown sturmabteilungsmenner because they make subduing a person much easier than it should be.

[Justforfun000]

I agree with Lord Poe in the main, but it does seem in this case that the police made a very bad judgement call. They should have tried calming him down with gestures and a soft tone of voice for a reasonable amount of time UNLESS the guy started attacking them. They just jumped the gun and shocked him because it was easier. But what is WORSE is that they tasered him again while he was convulsing on the floor in agony. That was absolutely inexcusable. He was still in SHOCK for fuck's sake. He didn't have control of his limbs back.

Tasers have been used far too readily in many cases I've caught on YouTube and the news. They are NOT harmless devices. They may be less lethal than a gun, but they can still kill people. Even putting that aside, the police should only be authorized to use them in severe situations. Just because it makes their job easier is a poor validation for their use. They should be allowed only in the same criteria of situations where a gun would be approriate. They ARE trained in hand to hand combat, no? Have batons? Mace even maybe?

[Kamakazie Sith]

I would imagine that drugs were involved. A friend who worked for the Glendale PD saw her department catch shit a few years ago when a man died after being tasered. What the media didn't seem eager to report was the fact that the man had been high on numerous drugs, and that's what killed him.

Of all the studies I've heard about involving taser related deaths every single one of them had either a drug problem, or an unknown medical condition.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Tasers have been used far too readily in many cases I've caught on YouTube and the news. They are NOT harmless devices. They may be less lethal than a gun, but they can still kill people. Even putting that aside, the police should only be authorized to use them in severe situations. Just because it makes their job easier is a poor validation for their use. They should be allowed only in the same criteria of situations where a gun would be approriate. They ARE trained in hand to hand combat, no? Have batons? Mace even maybe?

I just wanted to comment that the only response appropriate for any situation where deadly force is justified is only deadly force. Anything else, and you're putting your life, and the lives of others at risk.

[loomer]

The death more likely occurred from one officer placing his knee on the back of the guy's neck, and putting all of his weight on it, than from the taserings themselves.

[Justforfun000]

I just wanted to comment that the only response appropriate for any situation where deadly force is justified is only deadly force. Anything else, and you're putting your life, and the lives of others at risk.

Actually that was quite well put. I have to rethink where I'd place Tasers on the scale of appropriateness in light of that...A gun is truly the LAST resort although it is possible to maim and not kill. Tasers are supposed to be non-lethal and more intended to subdue someone as opposed to taking down.

In general, All I can say is that in my opinion they should be regulated more heavily then they are, and not used lightly. They seem to be a little too trigger-happy in these tasing videos I keep seeing. They certainly wouldn't act so cavalier with a shotgun.

[Broomstick]

I just wanted to comment that the only response appropriate for any situation where deadly force is justified is only deadly force. Anything else, and you're putting your life, and the lives of others at risk.

Actually that was quite well put. I have to rethink where I'd place Tasers on the scale of appropriateness in light of that...A gun is truly the LAST resort although it is possible to maim and not kill.

While that is possible, in most US jurisdictions (and I say "most" only to err on the side of caution, I actually think it may be all) use of a gun is considered use of deadly force even if you don't kill anyone. Pulling it out and pointing it at someone, even if you don't shoot, even if it's unloaded, is considered threatening to use deadly force. Guns are killing tools, that's what they're for, whether you're aiming at potential dinner in the woods or at someone attacking you.

Tasers are supposed to be non-lethal and more intended to subdue someone as opposed to taking down.

Yes, that was their original intention. They were developed, along with mace, as a non-lethal means of subduing or controlling people. They are not, however, risk free - people have died from mace (usually an allergic or asthmatic reaction) and getting a lot of it directly in the eyes can cause chemical burns. Tasers, likewise, usually don't kill people but the potential is there, particularly if a person is hit multiple times in a very short time frame. They can also cause damage to muscles and tendons due to the spasming, and it wouldn't surprise me if there were cases of bone fractures due to extreme muscle contractions. In the wrong hands they are nasty torture devices.

In many places, part of police learning to use these weapons involves experiencing them. The idea is that a cop who has been maced or tasered himself as part of training has a concrete idea of just what he or she is doing and is less likely to reach for these items before attempting less unpleasant means of dealing with the situation.

On the other hand, people has gotten SO fucking paranoid about airports that I think there is a lot of pressure to overreact and to assume criminal rather than aberrant behavior. With that woman in Phoenix, I think if she had acted that way on a public street she still might have been locked up, but the authorities would have been more open to thinking there was a medical problem involved.

I think one thing that surprises me is that no one from the airport tried to help this man - I mean, he's standing in one room for 10 hours? WTF? Most large airports I'm familiar with have had to deal with lost, non-English-speaking people and manage to do so without resorting to tasers. Was there no attempt to find someone who speaks this guy's language? Why weren't they willing to listen to his mother, who was trying to alert the airport to a lost traveler? And he didn't need to be on drugs - too much time awake, no food, and lots of stress can result in aberrant behavior of this sort, even if not everyone would get into that state.

In general, All I can say is that in my opinion they should be regulated more heavily then they are, and not used lightly. They seem to be a little too trigger-happy in these tasing videos I keep seeing. They certainly wouldn't act so cavalier with a shotgun.

True - these are not situations where a gun would be appropriate. And I think too many people don't understand just how painful a taser is. It
s a level of pain that can make people piss, shit, and puke on themselves as well as scream and writhe in agony. Not to mention they can be lethal to people with heart problems, and not everyone who has a heart abnormality is aware of the fact. They probably should be weapons of second-to-last resort - and they ARE weapons.

[brianeyci]

Is it just me or is the idea of four physically fit 185 lbs+ men taking down an unarmed man with a taser just because it's more safe than physically engaging him a little fucking stupid? It reminds me of cops establishing a perimeter and hiding behind trees outside a school when a shooting's going on. Okay, sure, safety of the cops is important. The man could be carrying a concealed weapon, a needle, a pen, a knife in his palm and could suddenly get violent. The officer, if he approaches to physically restrain the man, puts his life in danger.

But isn't that part of the fucking job? To serve and protect, put civilian life, yes, even a suspect's life who may have a medical condition, ahead of the officer's own.

If it's true that one cop asked "taser" and then the lead cop said "yes" then all the cops lost their minds (or at least the one who fired the second and then a possibly third shot by another) then it looks like a lack of poor judgment. But then you have to make a rule "one taser shot only"... what if one taser shot isn't enough? In a dangerous situation it's all about the split second decision and what if a cop makes a bad judgment call? How can you make a "catch-all" rule? You really can't, and you have to hope in what amounts to a life or death struggle a police officer makes the right decision in a few seconds.

So to me it seems like, ban tasers except for tactical squads with special training. Ordinary cops shouldn't be expected to make tougher judgment calls like that, when their day to day duties are talking with citizens and writing parking tickets.

I don't think police needs to go as far as the British in not carrying guns, but there should be only two levels of force, lethal and non-lethal. The problem with taser is it's neither, somewhere in between... that complicated chart TheKwas posted shows the problem exactly. The kind of people who go into police work, especially in dumbshit nowhere towns are the kind who run by instinct, not necessarily the most nuianced thinkers. And those cops who can handle nuianced thinking AND physically and mentally demanding situations, well they are special. How is someone without special training expected to handle anything more than kill or be killed in a life or death struggle? He can't, so either all police have to be trained to a very high standard in use of force, or just rip the tasers and leave special weapons to special units. If the British can do it, so can everybody else.

The worst part is this is supposed to be Canada's best, national police. The best police should be at airports. So it's a great black mark if their training wasn't up to snuff. It might be saying that training sucks, but at the same time it might be saying that the kind of person who can handle this nuianced thinking is too rare for widespread deployment of tasers.

[brianeyci]

Tasers are classified as intermediate objects, meaning they are only to be used in cases of combative and more serious cases of resistant subjects. This man can not seriously be considered as either.

The problem is in a life or death situation, the officer has only a few seconds to react and classify the civilian as "combative" or "resistant" or "non-cooperative." And this being the English language, those words have different meanings to different people. You ask those cops, they would say the guy was being resistant, at least verbally. They would point to the throwing of chair as a hint he could suddenly turn violent or unstable. Can a police officer honestly classify someone in a few seconds into that neat little chart of yours?

Well these ones couldn't. And it may mean the training is flawed, not taking into account human failings. To me there should be two levels, lethal or non-lethal, at least at the constable level. If anything more is needed... bring on the special negotiation unit and special weapons squad.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Is it just me or is the idea of four physically fit 185 lbs+ men taking down an unarmed man with a taser just because it's more safe than physically engaging him a little fucking stupid? It reminds me of cops establishing a perimeter and hiding behind trees outside a school when a shooting's going on. Okay, sure, safety of the cops is important. The man could be carrying a concealed weapon, a needle, a pen, a knife in his palm and could suddenly get violent. The officer, if he approaches to physically restrain the man, puts his life in danger.

But isn't that part of the fucking job? To serve and protect, put civilian life, yes, even a suspect's life who may have a medical condition, ahead of the officer's own.

No. The priority of life is as follows.

Hostage
Other innocents
Officer
Subject

Tasers are meant to reduce injuries to both officers and subjects, and statistically they have done just that. If someone has a certain medical condition, or is on drugs any sort of stress can kill them. That being said, I do think they were a bit to quick to taser this person, but I don't know the whole situation.

So to me it seems like, ban tasers except for tactical squads with special training. Ordinary cops shouldn't be expected to make tougher judgment calls like that, when their day to day duties are talking with citizens and writing parking tickets.

That's an absolutely retarded suggestion, Brian. Handcuffs have triggered the death of certain people, so has pepper spray. Should we ban those to while ignoring the overall benefit. It is unfortunate that some have died, but those are rare circumstances. In the end it wasn't the tool that killed these people it was something else that was triggered by the tool.

I don't think police needs to go as far as the British in not carrying guns, but there should be only two levels of force, lethal and non-lethal. The problem with taser is it's neither, somewhere in between... that complicated chart TheKwas posted shows the problem exactly. The kind of people who go into police work, especially in dumbshit nowhere towns are the kind who run by instinct, not necessarily the most nuianced thinkers. And those cops who can handle nuianced thinking AND physically and mentally demanding situations, well they are special. How is someone without special training expected to handle anything more than kill or be killed in a life or death struggle? He can't, so either all police have to be trained to a very high standard in use of force, or just rip the tasers and leave special weapons to special units. If the British can do it, so can everybody else.

Wrong. The taser is classified as non-lethal. You're letting the rare circumstances dictate your judgment here. If it were a less lethal weapon, like you're suggesting, then they wouldn't require it to be used on cops going through certification.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I just wanted to comment that the only response appropriate for any situation where deadly force is justified is only deadly force. Anything else, and you're putting your life, and the lives of others at risk.

Actually that was quite well put. I have to rethink where I'd place Tasers on the scale of appropriateness in light of that...A gun is truly the LAST resort although it is possible to maim and not kill. Tasers are supposed to be non-lethal and more intended to subdue someone as opposed to taking down.

In general, All I can say is that in my opinion they should be regulated more heavily then they are, and not used lightly. They seem to be a little too trigger-happy in these tasing videos I keep seeing. They certainly wouldn't act so cavalier with a shotgun.

I think subsequent uses need to be regulated more carefully. If you have some officers holding this man down then there's really no need to taser him again.

[Death from the Sea]

So to me it seems like, ban tasers except for tactical squads with special training. Ordinary cops shouldn't be expected to make tougher judgment calls like that, when their day to day duties are talking with citizens and writing parking tickets.

Because you would be taking a very good tool away from many good officers that can and do use them properly. I am not saying this instance is a misuse and I am not saying it was justified, I don't know enough about it to make that decision. Your typical street officer actually makes more of those "tougher judgment calls" than a tactical officer. Why? because they are there first, the first responders are going to face those kinds of problems and have to make those kinds of decisions. When you trivialize what the street officer does like that, then that tells me you really have no idea what they do on a day to day basis.

have they officially even decided what killed this guy? I can't find a report for the official cause of death

[aerius]

Is it just me or is the idea of four physically fit 185 lbs+ men taking down an unarmed man with a taser just because it's more safe than physically engaging him a little fucking stupid?

Problem. Physical takedowns aren't exactly a safe thing for either the cops or the suspect. What if the guy falls down funny and cracks his head open on a chair or against the wall? What if he pops his shoulder or breaks his collarbone when he hits the ground? What if his glasses get jammed into his eyeballs during the struggle? What if the suspect rips his own wrists open while trying to yank the handcuffs out of the cop's hands?

In the real world, there's no such thing as a risk free engagement with a suspect, things can and do go wrong in a hell of a hurry. Sometimes, there is no right choice, and all the possible "solutions" suck.

[brianeyci]

That's an absolutely retarded suggestion, Brian.

Not really. If the British can do it, so can other human beings. The argument is not that tasers kill, therefore they shouldn't be used. Pencils kill. The classification between lethal and non-lethal device obviously isn't based on scientific chance of killing. I'm sure you can find statistics that handcuffs have killed more people than guns because gun use by officers while on duty is rare. The question is whether we as a society will tolerate a gun-like device which someone in this thread has suggested makes it too easy to kill at worst or too easy to use excessive force at best. You can beat someone to death with a baton, but the problem with a gun is pressing a trigger makes it too easy unless we expect our officers to know how to use them.

I'm not going to tell Death or Sith how to do their jobs. If they think they need taser to take someone down, then so be it. Just if and when other cops -- or they -- face a situation like this, where the commanding officer says "Yes" to tasers, I hope they all don't turn their brains off and fire two more at a man convulsing on the ground (and speak up and say what the fuck if the other cops around them are.)

[Broomstick]

Brian, part of the reason this is getting so much media play is because it's an unusual use of force. Tasers are used daily in North America and you seldom hear about it because most of the time they are used properly and responsibly. The average cop is NOT trigger happy and most of them would be happy to retire after a long career never needing to fire a shot in anger. Cops carry gun, baton, mace, and taser to give them options, but normally they're quite happy to use words to control a situation if at all possible because the first use of violence, however justified, risks escalating the situation. Remember - cops are far more likely to get shot than most honest people and they want to avoid that! (That's also why bullet resistant vests are a popular fashion accessory in law enforcement)

If some percentage of cops/other authority types are mis-using tasers (or mace, or batons, or whatever) I want it out in the open and dealt with - but I don't want to take away an option. Tasers are not inherently a lethal weapon. For the vast majority of people they will cause pain and loss of muscle control but will not cause permanent damage. One advantage they have is that they will quickly take down a person even if that person is so high on drugs as to feel no pain - something mace and batons can't do.

Yes, for a certain percentage of people tasers can be deadly. For a certain percentage of people peanuts are deadly. That's not necessarily a reason to outlaw either.

I will also state, as someone who grew up in a violent area where the cops were rightly on edge going into various situations, rule one is that when the Authorities show up you put your empty hands where they can see them and look as meek as possible and move as little possible. If you look at this incident and the one in Arizona where the woman on her way to rehab wound up dying in custody, neither of those people did that.

At Vancover it appears that there was excessive force used, but it probably would have helped if the man had simply stopped moving completely. I do think it's deplorable that, with bystanders telling them the man spoke no English, they simply yelled at him repeatedly in English - hand gestures would probably have worked better.

In Phoenix you had a woman who was deranged due to alcohol and drug use. They didn't taser her - although she was physically resisting the security people. Yes, in hindsight they probably should have watched her more closely but the average loud drunk - and they had no information otherwise - doesn't wind up dying in the holding room.

Note that both of these cases happened in airports. At Vancover, I wonder if they succumbed to 9/11itis - people are so paranoid at airports that it seems outrageous use of authority/power are permitted in the minds of some people. Yet another after-effect of young men with boxcutters highjacking airplanes and flying them into buildings - some folks are terrified some other innocuous thing will result in mass death again. In Phoenix, well, lots of people find flying stressful enough that it produces aberrant behavior, including self-medicating. And I think it outrageous that this woman's family, knowing she was mentally fragile and having a substance abuse problem, sent her alone to the rehab center on a cross-country flight. What, no one could go with her to provide comfort and make sure she gets there safely? Hire a fucking baby-sitter for the kids and go with her, you dumbfuck husband - if you had, you might not be boo-hooing her death.

I also find it significant that in both cases family members tried to communicate to authorities but were rebuffed - if security had known the man's mother was there and he spoke Polish there might have been other options - escorting his mother to meet him, escorting him to meet her, finding a translator... In Phoenix, if they had known the woman had mental issues they might have put an observer with her, but again, the family's communications were ignored. Fact is, the airlines don't give a fuck about their customers, and neither do airport authorities. Disruptions are to be eliminated as quickly as possible rather than in a compassionate or even appropriate manner. It leads to an atmosphere where tasering a man writhing on the ground is seen as somehow OK, and it's that attitude that is the problem, not the weapon itself.