Zofia Cisowski, the mother of Robert Dziekanski who died after being Tasered by police at Vancouver airport in 2007, has passed away.

She was a Kamloops resident, but was visiting family in Poland when she died in hospital after suffering a stroke. She was 73 years old.

Cisowski was thrust into the spotlight 12 years ago when she figured very prominently in looking for answers as to what had happened to her son at YVR.

Robert Dziekanski died at the age of 40 after four Mounties repeatedly used a Taser to restrain him at the Vancouver International Airport. It led to the Braidwood inquiry, and two RCMP officers were eventually convicted of perjury.

Kamloops lawyer Bill Sundhu starting with Ciskowski in November of 2007, not long after Dziekanski’s death on Oct. 14, 2007/

He called her a friend and a hero.

“I remember Zofia as a very courageous woman with a sense of humour, but almost always, a grieving mother. It was quite apparent, and it didn’t change over the years. Whenever one saw her and spoke with her, there was an aspect to her, you could notice it physically and emotionally, she was grieving. There was an emptiness in her life, and that’s understandable,” Sundhu says.

“And yet I think she emerges as a very courageous person, a hero, because people can relate to her as a mother. The vulnerability of all of us when things can tragically happen. And it was through her tragedy of losing her son, her misfortunate and the injustice around that, that she became a symbol of change.”

Sundhu says there were two or three “intense years” where he and Zofia lobbied vigorously for accountability in the death of Dziekanski, which he says led to the appointment of the Braidwood inquiry and eventually perjury charges against the four officers involved, and two convictions.

Cisowski will be buried alongside her son, and there will be a private memorial in Kamloops tomorrow.

She immigrated to Canada in 1999 and eventually settled in Kamloops, by way of Logan Lake, where she continued to live after her son’s death.

 – with files from Colton Davies