This story very much managed to slip under the corporate news radar…
Police who faked badge numbers keep jobs
Police officers who deliberately faked their uniform badge numbers to avoid being identified as they weighed into a violent public protest will keep their jobs and won’t be investigated by the force’s watchdog.
Two of the officers were found guilty of breaching their own code of conduct and a third was said to have a “performance issue” after they were caught using matching identification badges at an Occupy Auckland eviction in January 2012.
Despite the pre-meditation involved, the Independent Police Conduct Authority decided the three officers’ behaviour was not serious enough to warrant its attention, saying investigators were too busy dealing with cases involving death and bodily harm.
So the tactics to hide the identities of Police Officers can’t be properly investigated because the Independent Police Conduct Authority are so over run by Police abuses and too underfunded to look into the complaints properly?
What a terribly sad indictment on one of our public watch dogs.
There are a couple of issues here. The first are the violent tactics the NZ Police want to try and use when dealing with protesters. These Police hid their identity so that they could assault protesters and provoke a violent response. We know this because those are the exact same tactics the Police used last year with the final TPPA protest.
In that situation the Police targeted a young female protester right at the end of the protest and assaulted her, provoking a violent response from protesters which of course became the news story due to the fact that the NZ Media are too underfunded to send cameramen to protest actions any longer and they only arrived when protesters responded to the aggressive tactics employed by the cops.
I currently have a complaint lodged with IPCA over the manner in which Police threatened, intimidated and bullied Cannabis activist Stephen McIntyre into committing suicide and can attest to the vast stress and strain IPCA are currently under in investigating Police abuses of power in this country.
IPCA can be forced to investigate an issue if there is vast public outcry from the media, but in this case, the Police are given a cone of silence from the rest of the media and have been able to get away with premeditatedly hiding their identities.
Luckily for the occupation protestors, a protestor noting the deception at the time stopped the Police from using their provocation tactics and prevented anyone from being beaten up, but the fact our Police watch dog has been so under fed for resources that its teeth have fallen out should concern every citizen.
We live in a democracy, and the Police have to be held accountable for their actions. Sadly this isn’t happening right now.
(just a little hyperbole, for a change) welcome to the Clampdown…before they “kick in your front-door, how you gonna come…” anyway Mr Policeman / woman, Outlaws gonna out-breed yas anyway (Angels and Bandidos about to go to all-out war…maybe…)
In my experience, Police will seldom give you their names, or at least not at times of “heated interaction”, so the number that they display is the only identifier (witnesses should always take many photos of police in action for future reference).
If there is the slightest evidence, hint even, that a police officer has committed an offence, then their tampering with their identifying number must surely count as perverting the course of justice; an offence under the crimes act? Police frequently commit assaults and use arrest as a weapon so it is not just a hypothetical issue. NZ may have one of the best police forces in the world. It would be considerably better if it got rid of this minority of thugs in its ranks who taint the whole lot.
‘We live in a democracy.’
We do not live in a democracy. We live in a faux democracy which is actually a fascist police state, run by corporations and money-lenders, for the benefit of corporations and money-lenders. He/she with the most money and friends in the right places gets to govern (plus the opportunity to loot the till).
Most people do not understand the meaning of fascism, so do not recognise the truth, even when it is pointed out to them.
The main purpose of the police force is to ensure that wealth is transferred upwards by enforcing regulations designed with that in mind. It has been that way since Norman times [in England].
The last thing the oligarchy wants i an informed general public or genuine democracy.
You took the words from my mouth! Nice to know I’m not the only one. How do you retain Hope?
So the pigs are gonna get away with committing fraud are they?
Inverted or fake id numbers have been used from time out of mind. It seems to me police officers doing that sort of thing are not only perverting the course of justice and falsifying evidence, they are doing it out of uniform.
The difference between the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’ is not what uniform they wear, or to whom they owe allegiance. It is in what they do. If what the ‘good guys’ are doing is indistiguishable from what the ‘bad guys’ are doing, then we are faced with a distinction without a difference. The cops are another criminal organization and should be resisted accordingly.
If the cops don’t like this sort of talk, then they should look to their own attitudes. They have, ever since the late 1960s been gradually withdrawing from the communities they once served. Having alienated themselves from their communities, is it any wonder they are distrusted by the people who live in them?
Copperdom wonders why it is that these days if anyone sets about them in the street, no one will come to their aid. Why should they? Coppery left their communities in the lurch long since. JAG: Just Another Gang.
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