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Canada border agency vows improvements after death

26 Nov 2007 23:49:05 GMT
Source: Reuters

VANCOUVER, British Columbia , Nov 26 (Reuters) - The Canada Border Services Agency vowed on Monday to improve its procedures after a Polish immigrant, who had spent more than six hours in the baggage area of the Vancouver International Airport, died after he was shot by a police stun gun.

Robert Dziekanski, 40, who was moving to Canada to join his mother, died Oct. 14 after he was confronted by police who had been called to the airport by reports of an agitated man who was throwing objects.

A video showing police using a Taser stun gun to shoot the unarmed man, who then collapsed and died, was broadcast on television networks across the world.

According to a log released on Monday by the customs and immigration authority, Dziekanski cleared primary inspection shortly after arriving on a flight from Frankfurt, Germany, but instead of heading to the secondary immigration area he proceeded to the baggage carousels.

"We could have prevented the situation -- the fact that he stayed six hours in the baggage area -- if we had more people who could identify who should not be in that area," Alain Jolicoeur, president of the customs and immigration authority told a press conference.

Dziekanski's mother waited for him for five hours in the airport's public arrivals area but eventually went home after a call to an immigration official, who told her partner that no person fitting her son's description was in the immigration area.

Dziekanski, who did not speak English, was captured on security cameras several times during the evening but Blake Delgaty, Pacific regional director general for Border Services, said at no time did he look agitated.

"He looks and appears as any passenger," Delgaty said.

Jolicoeur said construction work at the airport meant some of the video footage is obscured. He said the area where Dziekanski spent so many hours is the size of two football fields and that some 4,000 people went through it that night.

Canada's federal government said earlier this month it would look into the issue of police use of the Taser, made by Scottsdale, Arizona-based TASER International Inc <TASR.O>.

The incident is also the subject of an inquiry by the the province of British Columbia, B.C. Coroner's Service and the commissioner who oversees complaints about Royal Canadian Mounted Police conduct. (Reporting by Nicole Mordant; editing by Rob Wilson)

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Last updated:Mon Nov 26 23:49:13 2007