More questions raised about monitoring of Dziekanski's vitals

RCMP officers at the Vancouver airport thought that Robert Dziekanski was intoxicated and did not immediately call for emergency vehicles as he lay on the floor unconscious, an inquiry heard on Thursday.

Audio recordings between dispatchers and police officers from the night Dziekanski died were played at a public inquiry into his death on Thursday.

Dziekanski died in the morning hours of Oct. 14, 2007, shortly after he was shocked up to five times by a Taser stun gun.

The inquiry heard the four police officers who arrived on the scene had been told Dziekanski was intoxicated and throwing furniture around the Vancouver International Airport's arrival lounge.

"Member for an intoxicated male throwing luggage around, Level 2," a dispatcher said on a Richmond RCMP radio channel.

"The male is now throwing chairs through glass windows in the same area," a second update said.

However, toxicology reports have concluded that Dziekanski hadn't be drinking despite being described as drunk by witnesses. Also, though he had thrown a small table and a computer, no glass had been broken.

Dziekanski was hit several times with a Taser, a stun gun intended to incapacitate people with an electric shock, within seconds of the four officers arriving on the scene.

'Looks like he's breathing'

After a struggle to take Dziekanski to the ground, on the audio recording Const. Kwesi Millington tells dispatch, "We've got one male in custody. We've got four members here. Everything is 10-4," meaning under control.

About 23 seconds after the declaration that everything is under control, another officer, Const. Bill Bentley, calls for an ambulance, reporting that Dziekanski's "unconscious, looks like he's breathing."

The call is put in as a routine medical pickup, but 12 seconds later, an unidentified voice on the recording upgrades the call to a high-priority Code 3 emergency, calling for an ambulance to rush to the airport with lights and sirens.

Firefighters and paramedics arrived at the scene about 15 minutes later and were unable to revive Dziekanski.

The one officer who said that Dziekanski "looks like he's breathing" will be a major focus when the four officers begin their testimony on Monday, said Walter Kosteckyj, the lawyer for Dziekanski's mother.

Kosteckyj said none of the officers directly stated that Dziekanski was breathing, and the language is important because of previous statements that they were closely monitoring his pulse and respiration.

"That's the point I've been making all along: everyone who testified, when they gave statements, gave equivocal answers — I thought, we thought, we were checking," Kosteckyj said.

The officers are expected to be asked who was monitoring Dziekanski's condition, how often they were checking him, why the call to the ambulance was upgraded and by whom.

A security guard previously told the inquiry that he was checking Dziekanski's vitals and that he was alive until at least two minutes before firefighters arrived.

Members of the Richmond Fire Department have testified that when they reached Dziekanski, he wasn't breathing, had no pulse and was likely already dead.

Questions about scene assessment

Lawyers are also expected to ask the officers why Dziekanski was stunned so soon after their arrival and what information was collected on the scene before the Taser was used.

Kosteckyj said the officers should have taken more time to assess the situation when they arrived, regardless of what they were told over the radio.

"This is something that police officers deal with all the time," he said. "They have to be able to sift through and analyze the situation they encounter, not what they're told on the radio, because you could even see the embellishment."