They always get their man.

This time, they killed him.

Robert Dziekanski was tasered and died when four RCMP officers were called in to the Vancouver International Airport arrivals area to subdue an unruly individual. He had spent 10 hours there after arriving on his flight, unable to speak English, and seemingly without any airport officials offering assistance of any kind. He was waiting for his mother to pick him up.

Once the officers arrived, Dziekanski put up his hands and turned around, and was tasered, pinned to the ground by four Mounties, and handcuffed. Unfortunately for the horsemen*, the man lost consciousness and died. It appears that they then stood around twiddling their thumbs and refusing him any medical attention whatsoever.

Also unfortunately for the four horsemen, the incident was video-taped by a bystander. It indicates that Dziekanski was never placed under arrest, as well as a host of other infractions perpetrated on him by the officers.

Then too, until the video came to light, the RCMP had a variety of stories prepared and published in the press to paint Mr. Dziekanski in a negative light – all for naught, as was demonstrated by the video.

Not to be outdone by all the bad publicity, Tom Smith of Taser International is interviewed, and comes up with, “Tasers don’t kill people. Tasered people just up and die of other causes.” I paraphrase, of course.

Most pathetic of all is the picture of four able-bodied, trained (they are trained, right?) members of the RCMP standing around with their fingers up their asses waiting for a medical team to arrive, while a man dies in front of them.

Are these guys dummies, clueless, or just plain stupid? It’s my opinion that they’re some of the stupidest sons of bitches to ever join the Mounties.

* Slang for members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).