New Revelations at Robert Dziekanski Inquiry
One should always pay close attention to late breaking news on a Friday, it's when people who want to have the least amount of media and public attention paid to something release information that is destined to come out in the long run:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/06/19/bc-braidwood-...
"The email between two senior RCMP supervisors suggests that the four Mounties who responded to a call at the airport discussed a plan to use a Taser against the Polish immigrant before they arrived.
The four officers had already stated under oath at the inquiry that they had not discussed using the stun gun before arriving at the airport."
And at the end:
"The email was apparently overlooked by federal government lawyers in the thousands of pages of documents received from the RCMP on CD-ROMs during the inquiry.
A clearly upset Vertlieb berated the federal lawyers for the mistake, saying: "This is what late disclosure does — it disrupts the conduct of the proceedings."
Helen Roberts, a lawyer for the federal government, gave a tearful apology, saying it was simply an accidental oversight."
Sure.
I saw this on the news today - absolutely incredible.
So, are we to believe Helen Roberts that it was an accidental oversight? I mean, a law degree is the result of, what six years or so of University education, plus up to a year's apprenticeship, then another test at the end of it.
Can she claim "oops"? Does it matter, in the end?
This is obstruction of justice. And I hope she does time over it.
Her apology was very sincere. Clearly this is far more damaging to the RCMP than anyone else. They have story #1 which is that he was a madman and they were forced to taser him twice and he died of taser disease. Then the video shows up and they have to amend their story to multiple tasers but again it was because he was agitated (and that they left their first lies out there because they didn't want to mess with potential witnesses minds). Now they are going to have to provide story #3 which is how they can justify their lies. Of course the four officers are going to also have to account for the new evidence, but it looks like the judge was already throwing out their story as a pack of lies anywise.
I would like to see what happened before I judge the lawyer. Obviously, if she was interested in doing something malicious she could have just buried it forever. I wonder how it turned up now (are people still doing research of the data at this late date?). Clerical errors do happen. While it has created incredible logistical issues for the commission, late evidence does work against people who are fabricating a story to match the evidence.
It is not the first lie the officers have been caught in, as welll as the "public spokespersons" lies, which is why they all have an injunction going forward to try and squash the inquiry and/or any information coming out of it as being not the right of anyone but themselves to investigate, why themselves.
They will win this injunction and all the findings and the exposures of the inquiry will not matter.
I wonder if I was a friend of Wayne Kalistien's here in London, and cleaned up what I honestly thought was animal blood on his farm with bleach whether a tearfull appology would be enough to keep me out of the limestone house in Kingston.
I'm not generally such a hard ass. But, really. We've been treated to CSIS "accidentally" erasing tapes pertaining to the Air India Inquiry, to no consequences for Dr. Charles Smith's heinous lies, Julian Fantino being supposedly unaware of illegal wire taps and to this day who authorized them when he was negotiating with a native leader, to current Crowns Attourney in Ontario knowingly breaking the law by sending out the OPP to spy on prospective jurrors, and I'd eat my co-workers shorts after a day of high humidity if it turns out the Crowns in both the Guy Paul Morin and Steven Truscott trials actually believed those guys were guilty when they put them away.
So, colour me fooled too many times to believe Helen Roberts. True, it serves to paint the officers a bit more guilty, but it really derailed the Inquiry, causing delay and added cost. And in the end, the confusion and delay may yet prove advantageous to the officers and the RCMP.
If this was a "one of" I'd be inclined to chaulk it up to "shit happens". But, given the history of our courts and inquiries, I think giving any benefit of any doubt to people in authority counter productive to justice.
I agree with you, in fact, I would bet it was a deliberate holding back, and later putting forth, in order to cause a delay. Again there is a separate action going forward to have this inquiry quashed, delays mean they may have time to get their injunction heard. So watch for more perhaps.
This is what you get with imposed classist beliefs that those with education, and status positions, have a right to plausible denibility, no matter how extreme the plausible nature of it is.
Moreover, our police forces are not for "people" they are for the power brokers to remain in power by any means. So when we see that the police forces are above the law, time and again, it disempowers us from believing we have a right, or an ability, to act against social injustices, brought to us by the power brokers.
The judge asked for a guarantee from the RCMP that there is no further evidence being withheld by them. It's obvious what he thinks of them.
What do their guarantees mean? I would say nothing, as what is the judge going to do if there is more "unfound" stuff?
There was just something way too staged to the whole process to think this was a sincere oooppsie. I 'might' beleive that the lawyer was a sacrifical lamb who through blind ignorance or something was placed in this position, but I am more inclined to think that this was contrived. I find it hard to beleive a tough as nails lawyer - and she would have to be to get where she is - would suddenly breakdown in such a public fashion over this.
Maybe that's a sexist reaction, but it just seems so -well - fake.
The contrivation is evident, moreover, it plays/relies upon several ingrained sexist beliefs and activities for it to work as propaganda deployment.
It is not the first lie the officers have been caught in, as welll as the "public spokespersons" lies, which is why they all have an injunction going forward to try and squash the inquiry and/or any information coming out of it as being not the right of anyone but themselves to investigate, why themselves.
They will win this injunction and all the findings and the exposures of the inquiry will not matter.
The think that the injunction to which you are referring was dismissed earlier in the week: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/06/15/bc-braidwood-...
I think that the lawyer's apology was genuine, and that this was a serious *&#*-up by the Crown. The Crown lawyers that I know take their disclosure obligations very, very seriously. In response to Tommy_Paine (above), yes, this is basic lawyering 101 on the obligations of Crown disclosure, and they failed miserably.
I don't see how, in these circumstances, the Crown gets any tactical advantage from such late disclosure. If anything, it discredits their position, and seriously irritates the presiding Commissioner. It makes the RCMP look even worse, and supports the position that the RCMP have not been dutiful in their explanations for what occured.
Though there are certainly incidents of poor conduct by Crown lawyers, we also see situations, such as the recent Harkat disclosures, where the Crown discloses material once they become aware of its existence, even though it totally hurts their case. My guess is that the DOJ lawyers really were not aware of the presence of this email until very recently, and that as soon as they became aware, they disclosed. There lack of awareness could be the result of their own negligence for failing to read through the materials the RCMP forwarded them, but more likely, I would speculate that it was RCMP conivance in failing to bring the attention of said email to the DOJ lawyers. It is not an excuse to miss the email, but DOJ lawyers also rely on their various clients to facilitate the disclosure process. Obviously, when the RCMP is your client, one must be more diligent since the RCMP "disclosures" appear to be rather selective.
I think that eventually, there will be findings of misconduct made against the four officers, along with findings that they simply are not credible. There may also be findings of deliberate obfuscation by the RCMP brass. What I don't think there will be, and the question that I think needs to be asked, is on what grounds did the Criminal Law Branch decide that criminal charges should not be laid against the four officers? To me, criminal charges should have been laid and senior RCMP should have been fired.
If there was a deliberate attempt to bury this, it would have stayed buried. The e-mail is very damaging to her client, and yet Ms. Roberts disclosed it. It would have been very easy to not disclose the e-mail at all, but Ms. Roberts did the right thing, even though it could mean the end of her legal career. That's why she was so upset - and I can completely understand her reaction.
Having been involved in cases involving large volumes of documentation and e-mails, hard as it may be for some people here to believe, when you are dealing with a large number of documents coming from multiple sources, a number of lawyers working on the file, support staff, etc - yes, sometimes things do fall through the cracks when you are reviewing thousands and thousands of e-mails and documents. It's becoming increasingly apparent that there likely was some degree of malfeasance among the RCMP top brass over this issue, so it's not really a stretch to suppose that they probably tried to hide it from their own lawyers. I doubt that they were particularly forthcoming about this, in any event.
It's fair to say the DOJ probably screwed up, and that they should have been more diligent. But it's a bit of a stretch to say this was a conspiracy on the part of the DOJ to disrupt the inquiry.
I thought I had heard they were going to appeal it?
The government lawyer probably cried because she couldn't go along with the charade to the end and the guilt got to her. The best she could do was give the rcmp a couple months to come up with another "cock and bull" story on why they premeditated the killing of the Polish immigrant. What they should do is put all those involved in custody till the hearings are over to ensure they don't regroup and come up with more lies. Fat chance that will happen so expect another big lie, etc etc.
Nick Nargan
Pete Markunas
Julian Gryshko
Robert Dziekanski
Murdered by the RCMP
Lots of threads to choose from - I chose this one.
Mountie who fired taser at Dziekanski sues CBC for libel
As in the original incident, the Mounties obviously believe that the best defence is a good offence.
I wonder who's paying for his lawyers?
Nick Nargan
Pete Markunas
Julian Gryshko
Robert Dziekanski
Murdered by the RCMP
I would add Ian Bush to that list...you know the guy who was shot in the back of the head from an officer claiming self defence.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/11/02/bc-cullen-bil...
I heard about the sueing, must be a conservative. Yeah I murdered someone but I deserve money for people talking negatively about it.
Funny the comment section is closed on the article. You don't think it's cuz canadians are fed up with so many internal police investigations that nearly always completely clear the officers of any wrongdoing.
Claiming self defence in Canada ...I don't think so. Either he killed him or he didn't. I don't think there is such a thing as self defence in Canada. If there is it's one sided and biased. Guess which side?
Mountie charged in fatal B.C. collision
One of the officers involved in the fatal confrontation with Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver's airport has been charged with attempting to obstruct justice in connection a fatal car accident.
Cpl. Benjamin Monty Robinson was off duty when his vehicle collided with a motorcycle in October 2008 in Delta, B.C., killing Orion Hutchinson, 21.
Delta police had recommended a charge of impaired driving causing death and dangerous driving causing death, but the Crown said the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt for those charges had not been met.