Another Police shooting – the stock standard response

1. I don’t have a problem with this. Crazy guy threatening others with machete gets shot.
   I can think of a few things the Police can do better but this isn’t one of them.

   • The key word is “crazy”.
     There are other ways of dealing with people who are acting crazy.

2. The content of your article is influenced by your obsessive dislike of authority, especially Police and is full of speculative and biased nonsense. But you have never been one to let the truth get in the way of a good Police shooting story.

   I have every confidence that the officer(s) who fired the fatal shot gave the offender every chance to lay down his machete and surrender. I am also sure that these brave officers (not untrained alpha Police ) are very upset and stressed over this. It is the last thing any of them want to do.

   You were not there and did not have to deal with the situation and make a split second decision. You would have no idea how to behave in a situation like that to except to shit your pants.

   • “…your obsessive dislike of authority…”
     No fucking wonder. My dislike for authority’s pretty fucking obsessive too mate.
     If you’re rich, you get a different kind of shot fired at you. It involves lawyers, more lawyers, yet more lawyers then there’s the special old-boy shots fired where drug addiction and maniacal action is kept in house and under cover because of the ease by which wealth can be used to hide criminal behaviour.
     And is it too much to ask? To shoot a Perp’ armed with a non ballistic weapon in the fucking leg? Foot? Dick even? Thigh? Arm? Up the arse? How about keep him busy until he gives up due to boredom, sobriety, needs to poo? You could taser a shitting man/woman surely, rather than get your big-dick gun out and kill him.
     And spare me your convenient logical fallacy wank dick head. Shooting game animals, in this case a street level humanoid with a wire crossed, gives a cop-person a frisson, and you know that, you self justifying, blood thirsty liar.

     • the trouble with you country boy is your total lack of command of the language.

       That necessitates the tirade of abusive and obscene language that permeates every post you write.

       So, you silly old commie, I wont even bother responding to your cooments

   • Interesting that police shooting varies so much by jurisdiction.
     Suggests to me that’s an attitude and policy matter in each jurisdiction not absolute regarding appropriate response.
     Finland: 6 bullets fired in 2013 for a population of 5.4m.

     https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries

     • Perhaps, in Finland, the population is just more law abiding and less violent than the NZ population.

       • And why would that be, Gary? Maybe because Finland were not so stupid as to go down the road we chose under Rogernomics, etc?
         Preach what is good for the economy, while creating a hell-hole of a society?

         • Its not the fault of rogernomics. Its the fault of the present government.

           Oh look, I just made a comment as absurd as yours. Silly me

   • @ Gary your pathetic adoration of NZ Police blinds you (emotionally therefore you are being subjective) to the very poor decision making exhibited here.Poor policy, low IQ levels of members of NZ police and their complete inability to use their imaginations. they have tasers FFS! Low quality training coupled with gung -ho arrogance and a hefty dose of outright stupidity resulted in another avoidable death. NZ’s police think they’re in the USA and starring in a shitty police drama. the raid on Kim Dot Com’s mansion proves this irrefutably. Our police force is out of control.

     • What a lot of tosh!

3. What I have long thought inexcusable & sickeningly objectable is: it seems to me that they (police) shoot to kill; how come they never seem to shoot to wound? I suppose they’d be good ‘mates’ to go deer/pig hunting with?

   • They do not shoot to kill. They shoot to incapacitate. Not everyone who is shot dies. Anyone confronting Police with a dangerous weapon of any sort is there by choice.

     Anyone who places themselves in such a situation must expect to be met with force

     • Who says he had a dangerous weapon?

       • It was a machete, pretty dangerous if you ask me,

     • Gary this is what the police association head said a while ago…

       Police Association president Chris Cahill disagrees. He says the rule is clear for a reason.

       “Once the decision [to shoot] has been made, officers do not have the luxury of aiming to only injure – this is unrealistic and would put the life of the public or the officer at serious risk.”

     • ‘Choice’ suggests a person making some sort of rational decision, but time after time in these terrible tragedies it transpires that the protagonists have ongoing mental health issues, untreated because of the National Govt’s choice not to provide adequate mental health funding. Some choose death by being shot by cops – all sorts of choices – the choices of the voters.

       • who closed the mental hospitals? Aunty Helen of course

     • so that makes it all alright then .. Heads up Gary there are ALWAYS alternatives to force. Just have to have the brains to figure it out.

4. So why wasn’t a taser or pepper spray used. Do tell me. I have absolutely no faith in the cops, they have killed far too many people.

   I was reading the following just last night. Sure it is Australia, but if you aim for the torso your chance of not killing someone would be pretty remote I would have thought.

   Police in Australia and UK have almost identical rules that direct officers to aim for the torso.

   In an interview with Australia’s ABC News former Detective Inspector Terry Goldsworthy says shooting to wound “was not how police are trained”. “If you pull out a firearm, the intention is to kill … that’s why it’s called lethal force. If you’re not happy with killing someone you should not be pulling out your firearm.”

   And a recent Guardian analysis says “[UK officers] are trained to target the centre of the chest as it is the quickest way to ‘neutralise’ a suspect, even though it is highly likely that this will kill”.

   However, in many European countries, the rules are more nuanced.

   In Finland and Norway, officers have to get permission from a superior officer before shooting to wound.

   Officers in Spain should first fire a warning shot, then aim for non-vital body parts, before resorting to lethal force.

   In Sweden, if the police shoot at a person, they should endeavour to “temporarily incapacitate the person. The shots should be primarily directed at the legs”. The same goes in the Netherlands.

   And in Denmark “force must be used as considerately as possible under the circumstances and so as to minimise any bodily harm”.

   Berny Maubach used to be a Detective Chief Inspector in the German state North Rhine-Westphalia. He now lives in Whanganui raising stud horses.

   The firearms expert, who gave evidence in the trial that followed Steven Wallace’s shooting, says the central body mass rule is “completely rubbish”.

   “In Germany, officers are well-trained and can hit someone’s arm or leg from 5 or 10 metres,” he says.

   “The rules are clear in Germany – don’t aim for people’s vital organs – and it works. This is a very American rule, and New Zealand should not be Americanised by using it.”

5. AND THIS the comparison with Britain is scary.

   New Zealand police have shot more people in the past 10 years than the previous 40. They shoot almost as many as their counterparts in the UK, which has 13 times the population.

   Police bosses deny there’s a problem, but former officers, lawyers and families are calling for a radical rethink of how such cases are handled to stem the bloodshed. Tony Wall and Catrin Owen report.

6. Saw a guy pulled over today. Hes in his car with his family and his hands on the steering wheel. One cop at the drivers side window. The other cop standing behind the cop car with the boot open ready to get the guns. Too ready!

   • Bullshit

     • were you there @Gary ??

       • A cop standing at the boot of the car means he is getting the guns out, oh, give me a break.

         Lachlan has no idea why the car was stopped, if it was stopped by police or the driver was in distress of some sort, what the problem was, why the officer was at the boot of the car etc.

         My guess is that it was some kind of medical emergency and he was getting a first aid kit.

         There ya go, I have made an assumption just like Lachlan

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