Taser victim likely confused, mother says
Globe and Mail, Canada
October 17, 2007
VANCOUVER -- The mother of a Polish immigrant who died after being tasered during a confrontation with police at Vancouver's airport last weekend says her son was a "very good boy" who was probably confused and anxious over his first-ever flight on an airplane.
In addition, Zosia Cisowski, 61, said her son was probably frustrated at not being able to find anyone who could communicate with him in Polish, his only language.
Police should have taken him to immigration where someone could have been found to speak to him in his own language, she said from her Kamloops home last night.
"They had to give him a chance to talk. My goodness, he was so scared. He was so scared to fly because it was his first time."
Robert Dziekanski, a 40-year-old resident of Pieszyce, was acting erratically in the international arrivals area of Vancouver airport, yelling and throwing furniture when RCMP were called to the scene.
He was not speaking English, but yelling in a language that confused bystanders. Mounties eventually used tasers on Mr. Dziekanski, and handcuffed him during the confrontation early Sunday morning. He lost consciousness and died as medical workers were trying to revive him.
His mother, a janitor, said yesterday her son came to Canada to start a new life. She has been in Canada for about seven years, and was eager to have him here because she is getting older.
She wept as she spoke of her son, whom she last saw in Poland last summer.
"My only boy. He was handsome. He was strong. He was never taking any medication because he was never sick. He was only maybe sick a few times for flu," said Ms. Cisowski, adding his father is deceased.
"They killed him," she said of the Mounties, who say they were forced to use tasers on Mr. Dziekanski to subdue him after he began tossing around furniture and luggage, and shouting upon his arrival.
Ms. Cisowski said her son did not generally drink alcohol, "but I am curious if he drank in the plane, maybe." Nor was he mentally ill, she said.
But she said he was unnerved by his first-ever flight and not speaking English, and had no money because he expected to meet his mother upon her arrival in Canada, the first step toward looking for work in construction.
Ms. Cisowski said she had spoken to her son by phone while he was in Poland before he began the journey to Canada that ended with his death.
His mother said she has learned her son was delayed for hours in Customs and Immigration after his arrival in Vancouver.
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