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True Crime General

Blamed and Broken

The Mounties and the Death of Robert Dziekanski

by (author) Curt Petrovich

Publisher
Dundurn Press
Initial publish date
Jan 2019
Category
General, Judicial Power, Law Enforcement
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781459742932
    Publish Date
    Jan 2019
    List Price
    $20.99
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781459742956
    Publish Date
    Jan 2019
    List Price
    $9.99

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Description

A few fleeting seconds, captured on video, led to a frustrating search for justice tainted by ego, bias, and a desire for vengeance.

Images of Robert Dziekanski convulsing after being shocked by a Mountie’s Taser went viral in 2007. International outrage and domestic shame followed the release of that painful video. It had taken just twenty-six seconds for four Mounties to surround and stun the Polish would-be immigrant at Vancouver International Airport.

A decade later, after millions of dollars spent on an inquiry, and bungled prosecutions laden with bias and interference, the tragic impact of those fleeting seconds on the people involved — Dziekanski's mother and the four Mounties — is at last revealed.

About the author

Curt Petrovich is an award-winning investigative journalist with over three decades experience reporting on national and international stories for the CBC. He has covered the case of Robert Dziekanski since it began on October 14, 2007, when the Polish immigrant was declared dead. Curt lives in Vancouver.

Curt Petrovich's profile page

Awards

  • Commended, Dewey Divas and the Dudes Winter 2019 Pick

Excerpt: Blamed and Broken: The Mounties and the Death of Robert Dziekanski (by (author) Curt Petrovich)

Chapter 1 | Why Are The Police Not Here?

At first, no one notices him. He’s dressed in tan pants and a windbreaker that’s nearly white. His clothes are loose-fitting and flap as he walks, as if he were covered with a sheet like a Halloween ghost. He could be a ghost, if not for the luggage cart he’s pushing toward the meeting area of Vancouver International Airport. There aren’t many people here to notice him, anyway. It’s nearly one on a Sunday morning. Flights have all but ceased. The normally crowded greeting hall is now populated by perhaps a dozen tired-looking figures dressed for the city’s mid-October chill. Bleary-eyed, most are patiently focused on the swinging glass doors that automatically open as each newly arrived passenger emerges from the International Reception Lobby, known as the IRL. The IRL is a semi-secure part of the airport, just outside the cavernous high-security hall that houses baggage carousels, Customs, and Immigration. Beyond the one-way glass doors on the public side, there are repeated scenes of welcome: parents hugging children, reunited partners kissing, and friends shaking hands. The touching sentiments are brief in these wee hours and most head quickly toward the exit and home, arm-in-arm or holding hands.

No one is waiting for the invisible man as he approaches the automatic doors with three suitcases piled neatly on his cart. As he crosses the threshold, the doors close behind him. He follows the long walkway marked by a wood and steel railing, which ends in the public greeting hall. He pauses briefly. His head moves from side to side as if he’s scanning for something or someone. Instead of heading for the exit he turns his cart sharply and almost trips as he steers his luggage back toward the glass wall from behind which he had just appeared. A few minutes later, the man hoists his bags from his cart up and over the railing, piling them on the floor by the automatic doors, like a barricade. Once over the railing himself, he begins hitting the glass doors with his hands. He is no longer invisible. People turn and stare.

The banging reverberates to a section of the hall where a young man is stretched out on a row of bench chairs. Paul Pritchard is trying to get some sleep after several seemingly interminable flights from Shenzhen, China. A rootless traveller at twenty-five, Pritchard has been on the road for years, having left his home in Victoria, B.C., at eighteen. Pritchard was teaching English in China when his father called him to say the lung cancer he was battling was terminal, and could Paul come home? Hours earlier he had made it to San Francisco to catch a connecting flight to Vancouver.

Pritchard has never been one to embrace convention or authority — as a teen he had encounters with the police. He used a fake university degree and bogus teaching certificate to land the job in China. Pritchard routinely refuses to stand in line while planes are boarding. As fate would have it, as he sat waiting for the Vancouver flight lineup to shorten, he fell asleep in a chair right beside the gate. He awoke half an hour later. The plane was gone. The only other flight he could get put him in Vancouver long past the deadline to catch the last ferry to Vancouver Island, where his father waited in Victoria.

Pritchard has no money for a hotel room, so he crashes on the benches in the airport terminal with his big blue backpack. In countless ways, Pritchard’s long-standing suspicion of authority and penchant for shortcuts has carved the path that has brought him to this moment. Unable to sleep, Pritchard stands up to get a better look at the spectacle unfolding by the glass doors.

In 2007, cellphones are not nearly as ubiquitous as they are today. Those that have built-in cameras can manage to record only notoriously bad, pixilated images. The first iPhone, which has a slightly better resolution, isn’t on the market in Canada yet. Pritchard is not using his phone to record the scene, however; he is making use of the digital camera he bought for his travels. He instinctively grabs it, but doesn’t turn it on.

As Pritchard looks on, he strikes up a conversation with a traveller from Texas, who is just as curious about why the hell that guy is banging on the glass. They are trading thoughts and speculation, when a man in a suit with his hands in his pockets strides up to the peculiar scene. Lorne Meltzer wants to get through the doors that are now blocked by suitcases and their increasingly irrational owner. Meltzer is a limo driver here to pick up a client coming in on a flight from New York City. Meltzer has an access card that allows him to open the swinging glass doors so he can wait in the IRL for his fare. He approaches just as the wild-eyed man smashes a chair against the glass.

“Hold on!” Meltzer yells, as he reaches inside his coat for his access card. The man clenches his fist as if anticipating Meltzer’s hand will emerge from his jacket gripping a weapon. Meltzer thinks that on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the point at which the man is ready to attack, this guy is at nine. Meltzer swipes his card on the reader. The doors open.

When the man doesn’t budge, Meltzer loses it. “Look you fuckin’ asshole, I need to get through here,” Meltzer yells, just inches from the man’s face, which is now glistening with perspiration. The man’s black hair is matted with sweat. His eyes are glassy. He slowly backs down and starts hauling his bags through the open doors. He begins to build a makeshift barricade on the threshold using his luggage and some stools from a dark and deserted information counter beside the doorway.

Why am I not filming this? Pritchard suddenly thinks. Years of travel have taught him to point a camera at anything that might be worth a look later on.

Editorial Reviews

With the trained eye of a veteran journalist, Curt Petrovich deconstructs the infamous Taser incident at Vancouver airport in 2007 and discovers surprising facts about how it affected everyone involved. Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, you will find it difficult to put this book down.

Cecil Rosner – Director, Investigative Journalism: Regions, CBC News

Petrovich’s many years as a journalist for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation are evident in this expertly-spun narrative that is never dull or overloaded with too much detail. He has taken an incredible amount of material and organized it into a highly readable book that is both insightful and at times incredulous (that two of the RCMP officers were found guilty of perjury while the other two were not).

Bonnie Reilly Schmidt, The Ormsby

Impeccable journalism; vivid narrative; Curt Petrovich takes us behind the scenes in a ten-year legal saga to reveal how the justice system can abandon basic principles of justice when political and bureaucratic interests are on the line.

Linden MacIntyre, journalist and author of The Bishop's Man

Everybody thinks they know what happened when Robert Dziekanski died while being arrested by RCMP officers at the Vancouver airport in a Taser incident caught on video that went viral. But Curt Petrovich does the courageous thing that all good journalists do: He doesn't accept the official story, he digs for the uncomfortable truths and he forces us to question our assumptions and our faith in the justice system. You don't have to agree with all his conclusions to marvel at his detective work, his gripping storytelling and his compassion for all those involved. You will come away from the book shaken and enraged.

Julian Sher, author of Until you are Dead: Steven Truscott's Long Ride into History and The Road to Hell

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