Mother's efforts to find Dziekanski at airport 'disregarded,' Taser inquiry hears

Airport and immigration staff did not provide enough help to Robert Dziekanski's mother as she waited for his arrival at Vancouver airport, an inquiry into the death of the Polish immigrant heard Wednesday.

Richard Hutchinson testified that he and Zofia Cisowski, Dziekanski's mother, could not get anyone to help them find out what had happened to the 40-year-old, who had flown to Vancouver from Frankfurt to meet his mom and immigrate to Canada.

Dziekanski died at the airport on Oct. 14, 2007, shortly after he was stunned up to five times by a Taser when confronted by four RCMP officers. He had been wandering the airport for hours and became agitated after a series of communications breakdowns kept him in a secure area controlled by the Canada Border Services Agency.

Hutchinson, Cisowski's friend, told the inquiry Wednesday that the two of them waited hours, staring at the glass doors in the international arrivals area, but Dziekanski never came out.

'Disregarded, not important — that's the attitude I was getting from the people at the airport' — Richard Hutchinson

One of the first things they then did was ask airport employees at an information booth what to do, Hutchinson testified.

"I made it clear to them that the Polish fellow couldn't speak English and that his mother was concerned that he couldn't communicate," Hutchinson said.

Hutchinson and Cisowski went repeatedly to the airport's information counter over the next five hours but were told to either wait more or go to the immigration office, the inquiry heard.

Hutchinson then tried a customer service kiosk on another floor and a woman at the counter told him she would need a police warrant before disclosing whether Dziekanski was even on the Frankfurt-to-Vancouver flight.

The two staff from the airport's information counter and customer service kiosk testified Wednesday they couldn't access passenger information and instructed Hutchinson and Cisowski to instead go to the immigration office.

But both workers also acknowledged they knew that immigration officials typically do not give out information about passengers.

Hutchinson later found the immigration office and used an internal phone to speak with an officer, who told him there was no way it would take that long for Dziekanski to come through, the inquiry heard.

"She basically informed me that I had been waiting too long, that there's no possible way that that would take that long for anyone to get through there," Hutchinson testified.

He said the woman told him "there's no landed immigrant from Poland here in this place, so you might as well go home."

Based on the information given, Hutchinson and Cisowski drove back to Kamloops despite the anxiety written on Cisowski's face, the inquiry heard.

"Disregarded, not important — that's the attitude I was getting from the people at the airport," Hutchinson said.

After his testimony, Hutchinson told reporters he did everything he could to help Cisowski find her son.

"I thought they could have done something to get us in touch with that fellow," he said.

The airport and the Canada Border Services Agency have been criticized for not finding a translator for Dziekanski to find out why he was in the airport for so long or, when he eventually became agitated and started throwing furniture, to learn why he was in distress.