Monday, November 26, 2007

Ave, Nathan!

I'm late and I know this story has already faded from the ever-tightening spiral of the modern world's up-to-the-minute news cycle, but Nathan has written a very thoughtful (and outraged) post about the October tasering death of a Polish citizen, Robert Dziekanski, who was held at a Canadian airport for ten hours. The tasering video is available on YouTube; Nathan's post is here.

It's hard to deny that the Vancouver International Airport authorities could have handled the situation more delicately. At the same time, Mr. Dziekanski wasn't doing himself any favors by turning belligerent. My own feeling is that the airport should have come to the man sooner with a Polish interpreter (how could they not have one on hand for a man who was being detained?); had they taken that simple measure, things wouldn't have become as messy as they finally did.


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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Having a translator on-hand for detainees is tricky though. Is the airport expected to carry a staff of translators for all major languages at all times? Preppin'.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the kind word and the link, Kevin! I agree with you that Mr. Dziekanski wasn't doing himself any favors, but I think he was probably temporarily out of his mind. He may also have been sleep deprived--this was (I think) his first flight of any length, from Poland to Vancouver.