Mega Man Taser Video on YouTube Causes Controversy

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police made international headlines back in October when a Polish immigrant named Robert Dziekanski died following a tasering at the Vancouver International Airport. A video of the incident eventually surfaced, and a big PR nightmare ensued, with much of the public criticizing the actions of the police. If you watch the video, you can see the police throwing him to the ground, holding him down, and then shocking the man while he screams and writhes on the floor. As is the thing to do these days, someone decided to make a parody video of the incident; this time using Mega Man as a backdrop. As you can see, the video, titled “Mega Man vs. Polish Immigrant” basically has Mega Man using his “tazer mercilessly” power on Dr. Wily with Dziekanski’s face pasted on. Many people didn’t even notice the video until it was highlighted by Jurek Baltakis, who gave the eulogy at Dziekanski’s funeral:

“It seems like a little innocent video game, but I can tell you for Robert Dziekanski and his mom it was not a game. It was terribly shocking.”

Poor choice of the word “shocking,” but you get the idea. The video was created by a Vancouver resident named Mike Greenway, who said:

“The video was really more of a statement on police Taser use than anything. The video that I made is a tongue-in-cheek parody about the incompetence of everyone involved, not police brutality.”

I don’t know if this really makes a statement on anything really, other than “I have way too much free time.” Even a spokesman for the RCMP, Staff Sergeant John Ward, commented on the video:

“Any right-thinking person who would look at the video would be offended by that. A gentlemen lost his life and it is in extremely poor taste.”

Yeah, I have to admit that’s pretty offensive. But you know what’s really offensive? A guy being thrown to the ground, shocked multiple times, and dying as a result of some overzealous police. But no, let’s not focus on that. Let’s focus on some YouTuber with too much time on his hands. That’s the real issue, people.

Via Canada.com
http://news.filefront.com/category/gamer-life/game-related-laws/page/2/