An RCMP officer who took part in taking down and Tasering Robert Dziekanski says he was fearful of the Polish man's aggressive stance during the fatal confrontation at Vancouver's airport.
Breaking his silence about the incident, Const. Gerry Rundel told an inquiry into the death on Monday that Dziekanski appeared combative during the ordeal, despite the efforts of officers to calm him down.
"Mr. Dziekanski went from non-compliant behaviour ... to what training has taught us is a resistant behaviour -- where he has directly disregarded a command and fled from us ... and took up a combative stance," said Rundel.
"I recall fearing for my safety to a certain degree."
Rundel told the probe that officers motioned to Dziekanski and attempted to communicate with him, but he turned his back and raised his arms up in the air. At that point, officers believed that Dziekanski was resisting arrest.
When Dziekanski turned around, he was clutching a stapler and making a fist, the officer said.
That's when another Mountie Tasered Dziekanski, who screamed and flailed uncontrollably while still standing.
Since Dziekanski didn't fall to the ground, which is common, another officer ordered a second shock, said Rundel, who is the first of the officers involved to speak publicly about the death.
Though Rundel was aware that Dziekanski likely didn't speak English, he and the other officers proceeded without making a plan to address the language barrier, the probe heard.
The three other officers involved -- Const. Kwesi Millington, Cpl. Monty Robinson and Const. Bill Bentley -- will also testify at the hearing.
In total, Dziekanski was stunned five times during the ordeal, which ended as the officers overcame the disoriented Polish man, took him down and put his wrists in handcuffs.
Moments later, police had Dziekanski pinned face-down on the ground with his hands behind his back in handcuffs. According to testimony, Dziekanski made no movements at this point.
It still isn't clear if the officers were checking Dziekanski's vital signs at this point, but that will likely come up during later testimony at the probe. Some witnesses have said that the RCMP were monitoring the incapacitated traveller, while others have disputed that observation.
When an emergency crew later arrived, Dziekanski lacked vital signs and was likely already dead.
But Lawyer Walter Kosteckyj, representing Dziekanski's mother, questioned the judgment of the officers involved.
"How do you get four police officers showing up on a scene and having a guy Tasered and dead 20 seconds and maybe a minute or two later?" he said outside the hearing Monday.
Kosteckyj also called into question the officer's testimony that the Mounties were doing what they were trained to do.
"If that's the nature of the training, then the RCMP have to go back to the drawing board and reinstitute how they train people," he said.
The four Mounties came to the airport after they received reports of a drunken man smashing glass with terminal furniture. However, later blood tests showed that Dziekanski wasn't drunk at the time.
Still, it's expected that lawyers for the police will argue that Dziekanski was going through extreme alcohol withdrawal during the incident.
Dziekanski flew to Vancouver from Poland to meet his mother, but instead spent several hours wandering through the airport before he was shocked on Oct. 14, 2007.
Dziekanski's mother, Zofia Cisowski, had been waiting at the airport to meet her son but was told he wasn't there. Cisowski then returned to her home in Kamloops, B.C., which is several hours away by car.
With a report by CTV British Columbia and files from The Canadian Press
