OTTAWA—The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were widely condemned on Friday for using stun guns on an unarmed Polish man who collapsed and died in an incident that was shown around the world in a graphic 10-minute video.
The footage of Robert Dziekanski howling in agony after he was hit by 50,000-volt Taser blasts at Vancouver International Airport is another blow to Canada's famed Mounties, who have been shaken by a number of recent scandals.
The Globe and Mail, Canada's most influential newspaper, ran a savage editorial on what it called "the summary execution of an innocent man" whose only crime was being confused.
"The Taser death video that was being broadcast around the world yesterday is a source of shame and disgrace for Canada and for its national police force," the newspaper said.
Dziekanski, who flew to Canada to live with his mother in the Pacific province of British Columbia, mistakenly waited for her in the baggage area rather than passing through the customs section to enter the main part of Vancouver's airport.
After several hours he became frustrated and threw a small table at a window. He was standing still when police arrived and fired at him almost immediately.
The Toronto Star said the quick use of a weapon designed only to be fired as last resort raised very troubling questions. The right-of-center National Post, usually a strong backer of law enforcement bodies, also condemned the Mounties.
"The appearance of poor practice here is so strong that the RCMP may face a tough decision whether to defend their members' actions or to deny that they are, in fact, routine operating procedure," it said.
Canadian news Web sites were flooded with hundreds of comments, most of them condemning the police.
"My God! What have we come to in this country? I am sick to my stomach after viewing the video," wrote one person on CTV's Web site. "I thought the policy of shoot first and ask questions later disappeared with the Wild West," said another.
A few defended the Mounties. "A police officer cannot immediately identify an unarmed individual as a non-threat. What if the man had grabbed one of the officers' guns in the scuffle and shot a couple of them?" wrote one person.
Others questioned why officials at the main airport for the 2010 Winter Olympics -- which will be held in and around Vancouver -- had ignored a passenger who was clearly upset.
Vancouver's airport authority said it was still trying to figure out what had happened to Dziekanski.
Police initially said they could not use pepper spray because there were too many other people in the vicinity. The video footage, shot by another passenger, showed no one else present apart from the police and Dziekanski.
Earlier this year, an inquiry cast severe doubts on the RCMP's explanation about how a police officer shot and killed a young man who had been arrested in 2005 for holding an open can of beer at a sports game in British Columbia.
The Dziekanski video footage ends a bad year for the national police force. Last December the former chief Mountie quit over the case of a Canadian man who was deported to Syria by U.S. agents, based partly on false RCMP data.
In June 2007, an official probe into allegations of fraud by those running the RCMP's insurance and pension funds said the force's culture was "horribly broken."
Taser stun guns are made by Scottsdale, Arizona-based Taser International Inc.
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