I Was Murdered Today

Just as surely as Robert Dziekanski was, I was murdered today.

Public reaction to what some commentators have compared with the videotaped Rodney King beating in Los Angeles has been strong and varied.

“I was truly shocked and saddened by this terrible incident at the airport,” a reader wrote to The Canadian Press.

“Why was the Taser used at all?”

Wrote an Alberta man referring to the RCMP: “Mr. Dziekanski was posing no threat to these Rambo wannabes.

I am mentally ill, as many of you know. I suffer from Type One Bipolar disorder, and there have been times, when enraged, or threatened, or distressed, when I have been like Robert Dziekanski- disoriented, aggressively confused, acting out in a frantic state.

And today, I watched myself die on video.

Oh, it wasn't my face. It was the face of Robert Dziekanski. And, when he went down beneath the Tasers of the murderous RCMP cowboys, I died.

Whether he was just an exhausted and confused traveller, disoriented in a strange place filled with alien languages and voices, or whether he was a man in throes of a mental disorder, he was weak, and he was vulnerable.

He needed protecting, and treatment.

Instead, he was brought down, the sick wildebeast beneath the glinting fangs of the raging pride.

And he was devoured.

I watched the video, though I knew I shouldn't have the very first few seconds when I saw Robert Dziekanski building his imagined barricade against what horrors in his mind I know not...but I watched anyway, knowing what I would see.

Who can look away from one's own murder?

Murder.

I was murdered today.

And, a few days ago, Robert Dziekanski was, by the people who are trained served to protect people like Robert Dziekanski, from themselves and others.

I was murdered today...