For once in a long list of condemnations by me of police shooting people and avoiding the Courts where their culpability for killing should be determined – rather than the IPCA aka “Boys Club”.
I reckon the FUZZ have got it right this time.
When the AOS are “called out”; they drop their routine tasks and scramble to the squad room, don their bullet proof attire, draw a weapon and jump in a car to head to the scene of an event where some arms related criminal activity is pending or just happened.
This delay between “call-out” and deployment, has always been a problem for cops at the scenes of incidents which do require armed police. Hanging about hiding behind a tree waiting for the cavalry, can be nerve racking.
With 24 hours mobile properly trained cops, ready to respond immediately the balloon goes up, the NZ Public are better protected from the bad guys AND most importantly, from front line cops being armed at all times.
As this link describes: armed front-line police can cause more grief than they remedy.
But overall, I reckon Mike Bush got this right. A farewell present worthy of gifting!
Unlike the farewell present his predecessor gifted.
Ross Meurant is a former Police Officer, Politician and author. His current book is available to purchase here…
This is bad when our police have already shown they cant even handle tasers when it comes to handling guns let hope we don’t see big shoot outs
We already have the fuzz in our area, they are over the top staring out at us brown people when we drive past coming home and going to to work they are in unmarked cars but they stand out. We need to be careful we don’t turn into a police state. I am not happy with our NZ police carrying guns they need more training. All it will take is one shoot up and someone innocent gets killed then all hell will break lose.
Michelle
My links above specifically address ‘innocent getting killed’ that is HALATAU – apparently shot by mistake and my “Officers Culpable” link where in CHCH a man shot wielding a hammer on cars was shot dead – in my view, prima facie manslaughter by police. But because of IPCA – the evidence is not put before a proper court where witnesses are cross examined under oath. Once gain – no Court sanction of police behaviour and they walk away smug.
I have been fiercely critical of this situation.
However there are same bad dudes out there and police do need guns to deal with some.
I say it is safer for all – good guys and bad guys – if the police AOS are 24 hour patrol.
This Unit will reduce the number of occasions when our so called unarmed police, must miraculous produce a gun from the boot of a car and then – as the example I give in the video – shoot some poor bugger in the back.
Michelle, It is not the cops who are promoting fear and prejudice. Rather they’re the ones who have to pick up the pieces at the other end of the line. If you look closely at the bloke in the car doing his job, you’ll see he’s likely to be going home to his own tamariki at the end of the day or the night shift. His kids, too, will be wondering when he’ll get home, and how safely. Don’t let fear get in the way of anything, especially of understanding and clear thought.
With The AUstralian & NZ Gangs so heavily armed these days we need a Special Unit to deal with them. The average copper in NZ is shit scared of the gangs these days as their tentacles stretch right through our society. They have infiltrated our law enforcement and judicial systems and actually play hard ball these days if you cross them. Drugs, guns, extortion, intimidation are the basic tools they use to make money $$$$.
Hongi – There is a special police unit to deal with gangs. I know someone on it. Ask Ross Meurant.
You might ask Ross about gang infiltration of our judicial system by gang tentacles too.
Hongi If, as you claim, “The average copper in NZ is shit scared of the gangs these days as their tentacles stretch right through our society.”, then more kudos to the hundreds of women and men in the NZ Police
who go daily to a job which scares the shit out of them.
But I doubt your word here, because it sounds more like something plucked from your head rather than from hard evidence, possibly because that’s how you’d be feeling, scared. And how do you know that they don’t have a special unit to deal with gangs?
You are not the first person here to clobber the NZ Police, there’s another does it regularly, but the police are not your enemy, even if you, for some reason are their’s; they’re on our side, so keep your fingers crossed that they’re never privatised, or replaced by the army, or we could all be feeling scared.
Pip I am not criticizing the Police I am stating the facts through my personal experience of dealing with the NZ Police, I know a number of policemen present and ex detectives. However not all members of the NZ Police are squeaky clean and that goes right back to the TOW days. Let’s just leave it at that. In all organizations there are bad apples, NZ Police are no different ask Ross Meurant ?
Hongi Ika – Nope, I won’t just leave it at that, as I have made a complaint to the police, about the police.
I did it as an older woman, with a reasonable idea of what I was doing.
As my second communication was emailed, it was automatically copied to police national HQ, and a senior person was sent out to shut me up. (My interpretation.) My main complaint was satisfactorily addressed, in that it was agreed with, and apologised for. A secondary one, resulting from the police interview, was not entirely satisfactory. For personal reasons, including the stress factor, I decided not to take it further, as I thought that the issue itself wasn’t important enough to be spending resources on, ok ? I believe in cost effective medicine too.
The police officer learned that I wasn’t a silly old duck who could be fobbed off, and I learned that it is not the best idea to partake in these sort of things without a support person present. In spite of this I think the community cops do a good job – even if the system seems to have been fractionalised and changed from how it was originally envisaged; all the women police officers I’ve met are pretty good, and it is understandable if the officer who visited me may not have liked me very much, nor I him.
That’s life, but I still think it’s better to raise things when a situation isn’t right, or the same thing can happen again to somebody else. I’m non-confrontational, and I’ve found that best in difficult situations.
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