The RCMP and Me!

In the news today, there is an outcry over a YouTube video that depicts the murder of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski. The Herald says death, but let's call a spade a spade. In late November, the man, who doesn't speak English, wandered around the Vancouver airport for nine hours. He became disoriented and upset. When he was approached, there was no Polish translator. Four men tasered him, which led to his death. This was despite the fact that they could have subdued him without weapons.

Now, I think everyone who actively uses a blog has some sort of outcry about tasers. This will not follow suit and become some cry for peace and happiness.

The Calgary Herald and RCMP gets the January 3rd head scratcher award. This comes from their article today, which tells the story of a YouTube video that depicts a retro video game character MegaMan ® zapping a character that has the face of Dziekanski.

The article puts the blame on some heartless internet freak: "The public was disturbed by the event. This is how the subculture reacted to it," said Grywalska.

The article further says that the RCMP has tried to censor the video, and admits that the Polish Ambassador to Canada has seen the video, an obvious black eye for Canadians to be depicting the death of a Polish citizen as humourous.

But the real humour comes from the article itself:

Kamloops, B.C., resident Jurek Baltakis, who gave the eulogy at Dziekanski's funeral, said he would not want to show the video to Dziekanski's mother Zofia Cisowski.
"It seems like a little innocent video game, but I can tell you for Robert Dziekanski and his mom it was not a game. It was terribly shocking," said Baltakis.

Hold on! There has GOT to be a better adjective for a taser case than shocking. Maybe I'm just looking into this too much, but come on man... You should realize that saying surprising is really what you are looking for.

Point number two, at the end of the article, after urging people not to go watch the video. They post the link.

tsk tsk tsk. This is so counter productive to the cause. It's ADVERTISING what the RCMP doesn't want the public to see. If you really want the video down, have Capcom contact the man and threaten legal action if the video is not removed. Do it very quietly, and in such a manner that the man cannot form a stronger case to get more newspaper headlines.




Finally, don't taser the man. Then we wouldn't have this lousy blog post, lousy Herald article, and lousy YouTube video (I didn't watch it, but I got the gist), and furthermore (most importantly), no black eye for Canada because of the death of a Polish citizen. Don't defer the blame for this publicity to someone who made a satirical video. They have every right to be upset at what YOU did Vancouver... Show the public what improvements you have made, rather than pointing the finger at someone else.

Okay, slow news day. I'm off to change the headlight of my car.