Excuse me officer – could I have a word…?

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If anyone was in any doubt that the Independent Police Conduct Authority was a pointless, toothless, public watchdog then last Friday’s New Zealand Herald story on the progress of the IPCA report on the Urewera raids should blow any such illusions away. The story is here.

The report reveals that almost six years later “police involved in the Urewera dawn raids had still not fully co-operated with the agency investigating their actions…”

The report reveals that as far back as June and October last year Justice Minister Judith Collins was briefed about the police failure to co-operate with the IPCA. Now the report will most likely be released next month without important police interviews being part of it.

The newspaper asked the police to comment on their failure to give evidence to the IPCA and got the answer “a police spokesman said the force would not comment on an IPCA inquiry.”

Just who do the police think they are? Just what accountability do they have to the public? And just how spineless is the IPCA to not alert the public to the police refusal to co-operate with an inquiry of the highest public importance?

Such arrogance from senior police is not surprising. A couple of weeks ago they were praising the police officer found by an independent inquiry to have planted evidence to frame Arthur Allan Thomas for the Crewe murders.

None other than Deputy Police Commissioner Mike Bush told mourners at the funeral of Bruce Hutton, the officer in charge of the Crewe murder investigation, that Hutton had “integrity beyond reproach”. Those who suffered at Hutton’s hands don’t get a look in.

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The police have always hated accountability outside their ranks. They hate the IPCA (originally the PCA) and complained so bitterly at the thought of outside accountability that the PCA was under-resourced to the point it could not investigate the big majority of complaints of police misconduct – that job is still done by the police themselves.

To further placate these agents of the state they get “police-friendly” ex-judges to lead the organization – people who wouldn’t put any serious pressure on them to co-operate – and the IPCA investigators themselves are mostly ex-police.

The fact that they can hold off the IPCA for almost six years without a peep from this supposed public watchdog shows the organisation is there to simply apply a public relations veneer to make us think there is some independent oversight and accountability by the police. There isn’t and there never was.

A fake smokescreen would be a better description of the IPCA than public watchdog.

4 COMMENTS

  1. How are these cops simply able to get away with being uncooperative to the enquiry this is extraordinary. They are indeed a law unto themselves, they think they are the law and to hell with everyone else.

  2. I’m not surprised to read this about the IPCA.
    Why else would a police inspector be able to stand by as a home is demolished while the owner is in custody for breaching the peace – trying to stop somebody damaging his own personal property?
    Why else would the police claim it is a civil matter when this owner’s personal possessions are tossed into the centre of the room,and wilfully damaged?
    Why else would the police refuse to check whether the unlicenced contractors demolishing the house have acquired the building consent required under the Building Act?
    Why else are the police not too concerned that weeks before, this person’s car was totally trashed while he was held in custody overnight for telling people to get off land to which they had no right of access?
    Yes, we’ve laid a complaint with the IPCA – but we’re not holding our breath!

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