Perspectives of a Traveled Canuck

… or at least that’s what teachers in British Columbia are being told now.

It seems the provincial government is implementing a program that many school administrators are adopting – a policy where students are never given zeros, can hand in assignments as late as they want, and have an unlimited number of chances to pass the exams they are given (link).

There are so many issues regarding how best to educate our youth yet our politicians continue to take a unified approach. Let’s implement standardized testing for every student so we know who and who isn’t meeting our expectations. Oh, but let’s not allow any failures for these tests, or any tests conducted in public education. This makes sense because all students learn the same way, think the same way, have the same interests, and develop at the same rate. Right? And everyone screws up so let’s give them as many chances as they need to succeed. Does any of this sound a bit contradictory? Does any of this even make sense to do? The entire system needs an overhaul. That’s the only way to fix our educational system.

There are some who say that teachers are whining and have no right to complain; that teachers are not held accountable because the union is too strong. I agree. The teacher’s union is in many ways, too strong. As a former teacher, I was frustrated seeing teachers who shouldn’t be in the classroom being protected by the union. However, teachers are under attack like few professions are. In a day, assuming 4 classes per day on a semester system, a teacher has 30 students per class or 120 students every day. The teacher is accountable to all their parents and all their expectations (both high and low). On the low side, uninvolved parents often have uninvolved children and thus, unmotivated learners. On the high side, parents can be unreasonably demanding and critical, some even threatening the teacher’s careers and reputations if they do not do what the parent demands. Without the teacher’s union, it would be open season on teachers. Based on what the public often says about teachers, it pretty much already is.

Remember, teachers are taking a stand mostly for the benefit of students’ success. Do you really think it’s a good idea to give students’ unlimited chances to pass tests, with no real repercussions? It’s unfortunate that some think so poorly of our public schools and teachers. Mostly, this happens because of bad experiences with ineffective teachers. However, there are some extremely caring and passionate teachers and it is unfair to paint all teachers with the same brush. So no, teachers are doing this for their own benefit. Think about it.

So back to my point. To fix the educational system, what we need are customized programs that allow for options based on the individual’s needs and aptitudes. Some students learn early on they have little or no interest or aptitude for certain subjects. A highly creative and artistic person may not have a need to learn the periodic table. It would be nice to have the ability to better tailor programs for such individuals. Schools, after a thorough evaluative process and in consultation with the teachers, parents and students, should have the ability to allow students to “opt out” of certain courses. However, the decision to do so should not be made lightly, For someone like myself, I had so many interests and affinities that I had a really hard time figuring out what I should be doing career-wise. It would not have made sense for me to drop certain courses just because I didn’t feel like taking them at the time. Despite being artistic, I stopped taking art as soon as I had the option, choosing academic courses instead. This is a decision I have long regretted. I also regret that, as a student, I did not take social studies seriously as I find I have a lot of interest in world events, history and different cultures and societies. I also regret completely dismissing business electives, something I did out of pure ignorance of what business was about.

A key to the success of such a system will be to require parents to start taking responsibility for their own child’s learning. Why are teachers the only ones ever held accountable for student learning? Without the involvement of the parents, teachers can only do so much. And ultimately, should we not expect that parents care more about their own children and to care enough to be more involved? A more tailored education system with greater parent involvement is what will keep kids in school and encourage overall success. To not allow teachers to fail students will only teach our kids one thing – that they don’t have to try very hard because they will always be given a second, third, fourth, and fifth chance.

… but hey, that’s what we seem to be doing for criminals, but I guess that’s a subject for a different post.

Sorry, I am so frustrated with what’s happening I have to say something.

For those of you who have no idea what the Braidwood Inquiry is, it is the attempt to find out what happened at the Vancouver International Airport just over a year ago, when Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant, was Tasered multiple times and subsequently died. Why did this happen and who is to blame?

What we know is, upon arrival to Vancouver, Robert Dziekanski, who had never left Poland before, let alone been on a plane, somehow got confused and ended up spending 6 hours at the international arrivals area of YVR. Tired, confused, inexperience and not speaking a word of English, he began behaving erratically, throwing furniture and otherwise behaving in a threatening manner. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were called in to deal with the situation.

Prior to the RCMP’s arrival, they had been told that the man at YVR was violent and likely drunk. Prior to that, these officers had undergone RCMP training and most had only been serving on the force for 2-3 years. During their training, the were instructed in the use of a relatively new device, the Taser. All RCMP officers are required to be Tasered during their training so they would know what it feels like. The were taught it is a non-lethal weapon, useful in subduing individuals who are resisting arrest or are potentially harmful to others.

As I watch the news and read the news articles regarding the testimonies of the officers involved, I cannot help but be disgusted by what the officers are saying. They sound like the guilty, trying to cover up their actions – actions that resulted in a man’s death. I see dishonest officers – liars even. I see police who are denying what they see directly in front of their eyes, as amateur video footage taken during the incident obviously shows the inaccurate accounts made by the officers. It makes me angry.

Then I wake up to the facts:

1. Robert Dziekanski was behaving erratically and was throwing furniture around. In one scene, we see him taking a chair and trying to throw it through a large glass barrier.
2. The officers, prior to their arrival, were told that there was a man acting violently and breaking furniture and glass. They were also told this man appears to be drunk.
3. The officers believed the use of Tasers was a safe way of subduing suspects.

So now I ask myself why these officers feel the need to be less than honest during the inquiry. As far as I see it, they MAY have over-reacted and MAY have lacked common sense. I say “may” because I’m not entirely sure they actually did.

Let’s go back to what the officers knew at the time. A man, possibly drunk, high or mentally unstable, is at the airport, throwing furniture and otherwise acting violently. Upon arrival, they attempt to talk to the man and discover he didn’t speak English. The man is frustrated and picks up a stapler, apparently in defense (why else would he do so?). Realizing they were not getting through to the man (who may be unstable), they chose to use the Taser on the man, thinking it would be a safe method of incapacitating him. This eventually results in his death.

What may the officer have done wrong?

1. Perhaps they didn’t take enough time to talk the man down. If he was drunk or mentally unstable (which seemed a very good possibility), would that have been possible?
2. Perhaps instead of using the Taser, they could have used physical force to subdue the man. I mean, there were 4 officers. However, RD was holding a stapler, which he could have used to strike an officer in the head or throw as a weapon. Also, being physical puts the man and the officers at risk of injury. Good thing they had in their possession the Taser, something they believed was non-lethal, or at the very least, a very low risk method of subduing this man.
3. Did they need to discharge the Taser 5 times? Good question. Did the electrodes make contact each of the 5 times? Were the officers aware that the more you used the Taser, the more harm it posed? We don’t know. We weren’t there and we don’t know what the officers knew/thought.

From what I can see, other than possibly over-reacting and not using their best judgment, these guys were just doing their jobs. They were protecting the public from an apparently unstable man who had been acting violently. They employed what they believed was a safe method of subduing the man. Unfortunately, the information they were given about the Taser has turned out to be incomplete and in some cases, wrong. Hindsight is 20/20.

Why would these officers believe otherwise regarding the safety of Tasers? I mean, the RCMP requires all recruits experience being Tasered. I mean, if it wasn’t entirely safe, is this a reasonable expectation? It would be like saying, “we’re going to shoot you in the chest with a gun. It may or may not kill you but it is important that can experience what it feels like.”

I am so frustrated, reading the comments of fellow Canadians, demanding these officers be treated as criminals. How did it come to this? Well, these officers aren’t helping. Their testimonies are very questionable. They make very inconsistent statements from day to day and what they are saying does not jibe with what we see in the video footage taken the night of the incident.

Why are they doing this when their actual actions were not entiely unreasonable under the circumstances? Could it be they have been put in the unenviable position of defending, not only their actions, but their careers and reputations – all this when a majority of the public has already judged them to be guilty, murderous thugs (these words were chosen based on comments I’ve read in response to recent news articles)?

If I were one of these officers (God forbid), this is how I would tell my story:

We were called in to deal with an incident at YVR where a man was apparently behaving erratically, throwing furniture, trying to break a glass barrier, and otherwise being violent. We were told he was likely drunk. Upon arrival, we determined that he did not speak English. He seemed very agitated and did not appear completely cooperative. He picked up a stapler, which we assumed he intended to use as a weapon. We had Tasers on hand and, believing they are non-lethal, deployed them to subdue Mr. Dziekanski.

Could we have approached the situation differently? In hindsight, knowing what we know now, yes. Did we use the Tasers excessively? Again, in retrospect, it seems that we may have. Did we intend to cause Mr. Dziekanski harm? Definitely not. We *did* however, have to consider the safety of the public at the airport and we took action to quickly end the standoff. What we did, in that particular situation at that particular time, seemed like the reasonable thing to do.

The day Robert Dziekanski died and we saw the footage of the incident, we were horrified and extremely saddened. I didn’t want to think about what the man must have gone through in the last 24 hours of his life: leaving his home country for the first time; flying across the planet for the first time; arriving in unfamiliar territory and feeling so frustrated, lost and confused; being confronted with police who you cannot communicate with and having them fire an unfamiliar weapon on him, leaving him in convulsions before losing consciousness. Such unthinkablly horrifying events. It should never have happened.

Were the 4 RCMP officer at fault for his death? With what I know, I certainly don’t feel like I’m in a position to hold them responsible. I wasn’t there. I didn’t hear what they were told, I didn’t know what they knew. I didn’t see what they saw. Based on what I can see and judge for myself, I have a hard time seeing that they truly did anything wrong.

If we are looking to lay blame, there appears to be a lot to go around:

1. It seems that the powers that be at the RCMP didn’t do their due diligence when determining the safety of Tasers before putting them in the hands of their officers. No independent scientific research was done and the only research “evidence” indicating Tasers were safe came from Taser International, the company that manufactures, markets and sells the devices. Not only that, the Tasers were never inspected to see if they performed to specifications. In recent testing after the death of Robert Dziekanski, it was determined that the power output of Tasers varied greatly, many of which produced a jolt much more powerful than they was supposed to.
2. I’m sure Zofia Cisowski, Robert’s mother, has been asking herself why, upon not finding her son at YVR when she went to pick him up, knowing this is the first time he’s ever left Poland – the first time ever in a plane, she decided to turn around and drive the 5-6 hours back to Kamloops, BC, instead of doing a full investigation as to why her son could not be found at the international arrivals area. In reality, he was already wandering the airport… lost.
3. Why was it the customs and security agents who were on duty that night, didn’t notice that Robert Dziekanski was wandering the secure area of the arrivals area for 6 hours, after having been admitted into Canada? If they did notice, why didn’t they do anything to help him?
4. This has to be asked. Why did Robert himself not seek help but instead, start throwing furniture around?

The more I hear about the testimony of these officers, the more upset I get. It’s pretty clear they are not being honest and that the descriptions in their original incident reports do not match what we see in the video. It’s upsetting to hear these guys speak so cowardly and with so little honour. This is not what we expect from members of our national police force. What makes the whole thing worse is, I just don’t know why they can’t be honest because I’m not sure they did anything wrong in the first place. We have police officers who, while doing their jobs, take actions that resulted in the death of a man. This is certainly not the first time this has ever happened. However, from what I can tell, these men were not unreasonable in their actions. Consequently, they had no need to lie about it… and it’s too bad they did.

I know we want justice for what happened. Robert Dziekanski and his mother deserve as much. However, we seem to have two separate issues here. The first is, did these officers intend to hurt Robert Dziekanski? The second is, were these officers honest when making out their incident reports and in their testimonies during the Braidwood Inquiry? As far as I’m concerned, they should be harshly reprimanded for making inaccurate reports and being dishonest during their testimonies. However, they did not intend to hurt anyone that night and I personally think it would be a travesty if they are held accountable for that. These four RCMP officers were only trying to protect the public and keep the peace.

So am I missing something? What do you think?