Was that REALLY necessary???

I have to admit, I chose the article “Video of Airport Taser Death Released”, in a way, by default – I generally try to avoid explicitly political topics and when I saw the word “Tories” in the middle of the title of the alternative article, I ran in the other direction. It should be noted that I don’t like violence much either, but when it came to choosing between politics or violence, well, we already know who won out…

After reading the article, I have to say, I was rather shocked and disturbed by the event. All I could think about was the man’s mother, patiently waiting on the other side of the airport for her son, and how absolutely screwed the police officers were (they not only killed the poor guy but it was all caught on tape too). Like waaaay to reinforce the police brutality stereotype guys! Why didn’t they just handcuff him after the first taser? Is being “agitated” and throwing computer equipment really worth the death penalty?

I also clicked on some of the ‘related links’ to the article so that I could find out a bit more about the story, since the original article seemed slightly unfinished. I actually got to watch the video footage of the incident! (Amazing how technology impacts things…) Now, I was probably a little biased as I watched this footage because I had already read the National Post article on the matter. But no matter which way I looked at it, I couldn’t justify letting an other human being scream and DIE at the hands of an other person. An other link that I checked out was an article entitled “Taser victim spent six hours in airport baggage area”. I couldn’t help thinking to myself, if I was stuck in the airport baggage claim for six straight hours, I might throw a few computers too! Now, I’m not justifying Mr. Dziekanski’s actions, but airplanes and airports can drive a person to absolute insanity (trust me, I know ). I almost lost my mind going to Italy this summer with 11 hours total flying time (one way) and God knows how many hours waiting in airports, surrounded by beige walls, office-type furniture, public washrooms, gross food, terrible coffee, and a million employees that have no idea what’s going on…