What is known about Mr. Dziekanski's final hours before his death at police hands is this: He had flown to Vancouver from Poland - a trip paid for by his mother, a Kamloops, British Columbia resident, whom he was joining.

Confused after his long journey and unable to speak English, he was detained in a secure area of the airport for 10 hours. No explanation has been given for this detention. For seven of those 10 hours, his mother was also at the airport, waiting to greet him.

She was not told her son was being detained, or that he was even at the airport. After 10 hours, something happened (the "confrontation", the "shouting", the "aggressive" "acting out", the "throwing things") and he was tasered. He died.

His mother, who by this time had left the airport to return home to Kamloops, was informed of her son's death and told to return to the airport.

The state's account of this event verges on the Kafkaesque. Why was he detained? No explanation? What did he do to merit tasering? Oh, he was"agitated" and "aggressive". He "confronted" us. He "acted out". He "shouted". He "threw things".

At the risk of stating the obvious, were I detained at an airport for 10 hours after an international flight, I might well become "agitated" enough to "confront" someone in order to secure my release. Heck, I might even feel some "aggression".

And, if I didn't speak the local language, I might have to "act out" my sentiments in order to make them understood, or even succumb to the common (and futile) habit of "shouting" to surmount a language barrier. And, depending on the response of the keystone kops to my request to keep my confinement to a maximum of 10 hours, I might well start turning nearby objects into projectiles.

In other words, nothing that is being offered up really explains how this man acted unreasonably, or unreasonably enough to have 50,000 volts sent through his body. And, given the secrecy that seems to characterize police responses to allegations of wrongdoing (even - and I speak from experience here - when they're dealing with their own lawyers), it is possible that nothing ever will.

We can heap sanctimonious scorn on the Blackwaters of the world all we like. But there will be an inquiry into Blackwater's killings in Iraq. There might even be accountability. And if there isn't, it will be the result of a decision taken not by Blackwater, but by the state. All of us have a stake in knowing what happened to Robert Dziekanski. But I wouldn't bet on the eventual report of the provincial coroner telling us much.

*****

Russ Brown is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta. This blog was originally published online in the Faculty Blog [1].

For more opinions about the taser incident, check out Cowboys And Tasers [2]