Families impacted by police-related deaths gather
Posted November 25, 2012 2:27 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Nearly a dozen families of victims who’ve been killed or injured as a result of police action gathered for the first time in Vancouver to offer each other support.
Family members from all over Canada met for the first-of-its-kind session.
Zofia Cisowski, the mother of Robet Dziekanski who died after getting tasered five times at YVR in 2007, says the group discussions will be comforting.
“We have the same pain because of RCMP actions. We will support each other. For me this group means a lot because it’s my life and I’d like to do something about it]. I’d like to understand more about what happened, because that question keeps going (in my head) almost everyday why, and why, and why?” explains Cisowski.
Linda Bush, who is the mother of Ian Bush, the young man who was shot and killed by police in Houston, BC while in custody back in 2005, finds the session therapeutic.
“I’ve been hearing a lot of pain today. Some of it is older and some of its really fresh. But it’s always good to talk in a group like this to share experiences and try and offer a bit of hope,” says Bush.
She wants to help to prevent future tragedies from happening. “The other thing is continuing to work towards applying a little pressure to make sure that more loose ends are cleared up, that continued in tightening up laws and making sure there’s accountability,” adds Bush.
The BC Civil Liberties Association was instrumental in arranging the session.
“It’s really important to us that this group is by the families and for the families. So, how often we will be meeting and the specific mandate of the group will be determined by their conversations that are taking place today,” says Stefanie Ratjen with the BCCLA.
She says the amount of police related complaints is a problem. “We get a staggering amount of calls. The exact numbers I don’t know, but not a day goes by where we don’t hear something. BC is the unfortunate leader in terms of police involved deaths in custody.”
