Watching the conclusion of ‘Drug Bust’ last night on TV3 – just before X-Factor – I was struck by the final sequence where the South Auckland police drug operation is summed up by its commander: “our fight” is how he put it. Our propaganda is what it is. Free ads for the NZ Police. Police 10-7, Road Cops and so on, also fall into that category. They all tend to fuse into one long-running blur of blue flack jackets and bleeped out harranguing.
The only thing liberal about the NZ Police fight against meth and cannibas is the adjectives used in their propaganda. There was plenty of it – from the moralising police to the portentous voice-overs setting up each scene as if the Kelly-Ripper-Manson-Bundy gang was inside running a tinny house lined with human skin and skulls of decapitated hitchhikers as ashtrays, when in all reality it is nothing more sinister than aunty Dee and her man trying to get the best for their four kids by finding a way of being able to afford the same things as their middle class neighbours. Very undramatic, highly unnotable and decidedly un-sexy. And of course no “victims” either. Not that you’d ever know it from the context the producers attempt to frame these battles in their self-proclaimed fight.
Every ‘discovery’ was ‘disturbing’ – the spotting knives, a piece of tinfoil and… horror of horrors… a roach – all highly disturbing. And if it wasn’t disturbing enough try making it extremely disturbing. What looks like cannibas oil in a pot was being described as a potential meth lab – think the worst and double it, that sort of thing. Don’t contradict the initial assessment either if it means retracting. What an insight into the police mentality. Seeing things that aren’t there, hyping everything up and a raging paranoia that everyone is trying to put it over you – in other words exhibiting all the characteristics of the meth addict themselves. The telling instantaneous tongue lolling of Det. Snr. Sgt. Knobhead when he mentioned the ‘white powder’ makes you think he had familiarised himself with it intimately.
The tactics of the drug police could not be worse if it was staged by the defence in order to show the gross misuse of the search warrant. The routine seems to be someone (maybe from a rival tinny house operating with police clearance – who really knows because it’s all anonymous) narks off the tinny house or the grower and about twenty odd cops converge on the house. Usually it’s down a long driveway. In one instance they charge down with a civvy-dressed dog ranger in the throng. It’s a multi-agency response – as the householders may well have thought: every species of pig.
They then simultaneously smashed the front door to bits (broken glass crashing) while shouting ‘police!’ and ‘search warrant!’. They force the doors inside the hallway as they burst in. There is much shouting and crashing – there must be a fearful stoush underway inside by all this racket. Shouts, screams, yelling demands more crashing and smashing. It must be a hell of a scrap in there. Outside the other cops have surrounded the garage. It’s locked. The cop’s reaction isn’t to go and fetch the key from in the house – assuming they can secure the house from all the violent people – it’s to give the door a kung fu kick. Then he looks inside the busted door (he must have seen nobody because he doesn’t say anything) and lets out another kick, and another and another until the door is splintered and off its hinges, wrecked. Imagine the landlord watching all that!
What a scene, wrecked doors, smashed up house. And then… the voice-over explains… no-one was home. They had trashed the place wantonly and recklessly and negligently and without good faith – when all they had to do would have been to send one person down on a reccy – maybe even to knock on the door to see if anyone was home. And no-one was home. No-one. Spared the humiliation by the show’s producers when they should have made a meal of it. Whether they wanted a show of over-kill for the cameras, or – more disturbingly in the natural meaning of the word – if this is their standard procedure, then they have demonstrated they are incapable of discharging that duty properly. And that’s not the only thing they don’t seem to be able to manage by themselves.
The airborne portion of the busts – flying over countryside to find patches of the demon herb amongst all the other weeds – were conducted from non other than an airforce helicopter. Cheaper than a commercial charter perhaps, but what of this seamless approach to the defence force resources as being interchangeable with police? The public may be stirred by maintaining the chinese walls that exist between the external and internal spy agencies, but no such fear, suspicion or unease seems to be expressed towards the co-opting of the NZDF to do the dirty work of the NZ Police. Let us remember Whanau-a-Apanui’s protest fishing against the Petrobras exploration was supressed by the Royal NZ Navy – not by the NZ Police – in the final analysis.
Any review of the reality cop programmes will yield similar observations. They may be designed and produced and edited to promote the police, but so much of what the police do that makes it to air is provocation and mistreatment that cannot be dismissed. The character and psyche of the police is also on parade as much as their actions are. The quintessential arrogance and assumption they are above the law is plain.
When the team policing unit (the thug mob of seven foot goons brought out to quell riots but applied without sensitivity or thought to any “party” situation) start running in formation down the street (as they did in one episode) then they will bash anyone in their way. When a cop jogged past the gate of a property and the boy standing inside told him he was there to guard the house against the gatecrashers he is told by the cop: “Well, you’ve got a shithouse job then haven’t you” as he menaced past. So, will we have this officer to thank for inspiring this young boy: either into the policehood by way of attraction to the belligerence and swagger, or more likely against him and the police forever because of that moment of intimidation and hostility.
And of course it didn’t help that the kid was brown – that’s the first sign of an offender’s guilt they learn at police college. Compare this to some of the cases shown – like the white kids caught drinking on top of a roof in town who were not only let go (instead of charged with being in an enclosed yard etc.) but also got to keep their alcohol because the cop reasoned that the place they were tresspassing on was outside of the technical liquor ban area. How unusually friendly and helpful, almost enough to restore one’s faith in the local plod and his discretion… until, you know, the racial angle.
For all the bravado and the macho statements that undermine any notion of the traditional restraint and detachment the police may have had (like the operation commander speaking as if he was daring the meth house owners to start shooting so that they could return fire), the results of the raids were risible. The proud list of convictions following the operation were as anti-climactical as their ridiculous empty house invasion. A list of a few months Home D in most cases for selling and possession – the most being a few years imprisonment – was all there was to show. The police wrecking some stoners’ lives – that’s all it amounts to.
The multitude of cases through the news of incidents like girls (like 15 year-old Ella Mere Ekatone) being king hit by cops during one of these goon runs and having their teeth knocked out etc., and incidents like the egg firing off his stun gun and drawing his Glock trying to arrest someone in Raglan on a bullshit breach of bail, proves there is more than enough material out there in the age of mobile phones with cameras to make a show about police brutality. If only a network would have the balls to commission it.
Not really a story about Police brutality, but sort of relevant:
A few years back, kicking in doors and entering was already standard procedure. I can only assume it’s worse these days.
In my second year at university, I lived in half a house. I was lying on my bed swatting for an exam when I heard a huge smash and running. They’d kicked in the front door to the other part of the house, looking for a guy who’d stayed with me a couple of nights.
Once they figured out they’d got the wrong place, they came in my back door. One stopped in my bedroom door and pointed a .38 at me, screaming for me to get on the floor. I said “Nah, I like it on the bed.” This was repeated 2 or 3 times, after which he screamed “Stay on the bed. Don’t move!” I then followed his order.
Another one was running around the house yelling “Where’s the rottweiler? Where’s the fucking rottweiler?” This provoked my fat cat to come out from under the bed, which I pointed out as a possible rottweiler. They were not amused and took all the medicines they found in the house, plus my swatting notes, as evidence. I picked them up from a detective at Central the next day, who spent about half an hour frothing at the mouth, telling me I might have got away with it this time, but he’d make sure he got me in the end. He never specified what for, but the whole incident deepened my dislike of Phil Goff and his refusal to wipe convictions after a certain time clean. His reasoning? Just because someone hadn’t been caught didn’t mean they weren’t up to something. They’d probably just become more cunning. Why is he in the Labour Party? His views on Justice align with John Banks.
Anyway, while a series on Police brutality would be interesting, I can’t see it ever happening. The Police just have far too much political power in little old Aotearoa. They’d make life hell for anyone working on an honest program.
“looking for a guy who’d stayed with me a couple of nights. ”
Tell us about your friend, why did the police want him?
KP – Tell us about your friend, why did the police want him?
A good read, plenty of laughs and important points raised.
Heard a lot of similar events over recent years, one guy wearing shorts and a t-shirt leaving his house at six in the morning pushed to the ground with six AOS members pointing their firearms at his head, being peaceful and fully cooperative doesn’t help as they ransack the property, looking at items of their property as if it’s for the taking. Returning from the Police station, gates on the property fully open, no regard to the possibility of livestock running off the property on to others or the busy highway, nor the obvious dangers that could pose to the public. Read the newspaper, the Police account exaggerates the number of plants seized by two thirds more. After sentencing, they seem to target said offender because they weren’t satisfied with the court’s ruling.
For those owning any property of worth, new laws over recent years likely add an incentive to heavily screw those found cultivating cannabis. Never mind the tough financial circumstances the growers face.
Another case, one cannabis plant found growing, on top of that absurd allegations by the Police of the “offender” stealing a car due to alleged DNA evidence, never mind the overwhelming evidence in the offender’s favour. After the protracted court proceedings the guy has to pay an $800 fine. Contrast this with an Israeli couple here found harvesting 54 plants along with 6 kilograms of dried cannabis in a sophisticated indoor growing operation, discharged without conviction in return for a $2,000 donation to the Salvation Army. The couple claimed the cannabis was for their personal use, very unlikely however: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10893337
Hear other allegations along the grapevine that if true are evidence of Police corruption. A case where a guy is pulled over on the road and the police discover a bag of cannabis in his car, they confiscate it and let him go. Later the guy goes to buy some from a dealer he knows where he realises the product the dealer is selling is the bag that was confiscated from him.
With the many road blocks in the area that cause a good deal of grief for low income earners caught without current vehicle relicensing, WOF, licence, or those over the alcohol limit; there’s a cop renowned for being a drunk, the advice is if you’re ever stopped by him tell him to take the breath test first.
The Police appear to becoming a gang of corrupt thugs above the law, expect little or no accountability with the right-wing nuts in charge and their supporters idolising them. The internet is the place to showcase Police misconduct, expect little from the media.
Yes, I haven’t had such a good laugh for a long time as I did watching Drug Bust the other night. And the pot of meth – well, that had me practically rolling on the floor. It did occur to me at the time, how do they pick the voice-over guy? All that emphasis and seriousness without breaking into so much as a snigger….must take real skill. I too have some hilarious stories to tell of back in the day but those times are well behind me now. Ahhh, sweet memories. Unfortunately programmes like these have not changed my opinions of ‘the filth’ being just that.
No more Judge Dredd movieses for them!!!
“girls (like 15 year-old Ella Mere Ekatone) being king hit by cops”
Are you saying its worse because she is female, as compared to a male, then it’s “not so bad”?
You spin it like it was a violent home invasion of a parent supervised teenage girls pajama party.
It was yet another story of out of control teenagers, booze and drugs ( supplied by mummy? ) means all sorts of aggressive crazy behaviour, intimidated, fearful neighbours.
And then there are the drop kick parents – “ooohh my poor precious little darling!”
What is your “precious little darling” doing at a boozy out of control party at 2am in the morning?
150 out of control teenagers, so intoxicated some of them are passed out on the street.
I’d like to see how you Selwyn would do it, when the call came and you had to go shut the “party” down and restore order.
No the point of calling her a girl is that she is – you know – a girl nothing more, nothing less
If she was following police orders to depart (as is claimed) there is no reason to assault here regardless of whats happening and/or why she was there!
If she had been committing a crime she would have been arrested. So we have teenage girl, sans front teeth – but no charges brought against her – what does that tell you about what was happening that night KP?
Have you ever in your life been at a party that was shut down by the police? – in my youth i was at several – does that mean i was a drug fueled psychopath throwing bottles at the cops? Does it mean that i knew the people causing the trouble? Does that mean that i was causing trouble my self? – no, i just happened to be there and left when things got out of hand (usually at the same point the cops were lining up across the street)
Ive seen them move that line down the street and assault anyone within baton reach regardless of whether they were coming or going. Ive seen them go onto private property and assault the neighbours you claim to be so concerned about. Ive seen them attack and threaten people who just happened to be travelling along the street and clearly had no association with the incident
yes the police have to deal with some real drongos – but thats never an excuse for arbitrary intimidation and assault of law abiding citizens regardless of their age, social standing or association to the incident. If your being peacefull, breaking no laws and following legal requests from the police why are you fair game for a bash?
your desire to make excuses for the police assaulting teenagers is somewhat disgusting.
While a debate on the merits or otherwise of legalising marijuana is needed, it is impossible because anyone who argues for decriminalisation can expect a visit from the police. Hence, a completely one sided argument in the media.
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