When Police announced their new para-military squad, it was sold to us as a means to respond with well trained Police to an incident where a gun was involved and we all acknowledged that it was probably a smarter idea that trained Police responded to those incidents than poorly trained cops with guns locked in their car trunks.
BUT.
The immediate problem became the mission creep.
No sooner had Police announced this roving para-military squad to deal with incidents where fire arms were presented, they started adding things to the list for which these teams could be used for, and that is a problem.
When so many Maori and Pacifica people are the target of shootings, you only want situations where a gun has actually been presented, because the second it becomes ‘suspected’, bias and trigger happy adrenaline starts taking over.
The first example of this team is already concerning…
Police’s new armed response team on hunt for ‘person of interest’ in Christchurch
Canterbury police’s new rapid reaction armed police team has been called in to help find a “person of interest” in Christchurch.
The six-month pilot of the armed response teams (ARTs) began on Monday, with the team seen at a property on Memorial Ave.
Neighbours reported seeing the team, with their new Holden Acadia SUV, arrive on Monday afternoon searching for someone at the property.
A police spokeswoman confirmed officers were looking for a “person of interest”, who was not found at the property.
The spokeswoman declined to say whether they were looking for alleged rapist James Arthur Brown.
Brown, 53, is understood to have absconded from the Salisbury Street Foundation, a rehabilitation centre for ex-prisoners in Merivale late last month.
He is expected to face trial in less than two months on charges of rape, assault with intent to injure, threatening to kill and two sexual violations for alleged events that took place last year.
It is also understood he faces a separate charge of demanding a motor vehicle with intent to steal it.
…now, no one is suggesting that Arthur Brown isn’t a nasty piece of work, but he’s simply cut his ankle bracelet off and done a runner. That’s a case for basic policing, that’s not a reason to call out the armed goon squad.
Has he appeared somewhere else with a firearm and threatened anyone?
No he hasn’t, yet here we have them being used to hunt him down.
These para-military armed Police should only be used where a fire arm has been presented, not for chasing absconding criminals.
I think we need roving para-military Police as an immediate response to white lone gun men, but beyond that, I fear the same old bias and racial profiling will slip in and the usual targets who aren’t armed will get shot.
Sounds like they are eager for some action, probably to make an example of someone to show crims that the police aren’t too be messed with. Hopefully they don’t follow the police tradition of losing/misplacing firearms and shooting their own car/their own arse/innocent civilians etc
There is no good reason I can see to arm these people for the most part. They have demonstrated more than once they simply don’t have the capacity to handle weapons competently. Its another example of bad irresponsible govt but then it seems that’s all there is these days.
Exactly the same thing happening in Australia and elsewhere in the world. Of course neo liberal capitalism follows familiar patterns and that’s why I simply wont be voting until there are parties who are worth voting for.
Giving our bumbling police guns when they cant even handle tasers sets a very bad precedent
don’t mention car chases.
For whose benefit? We must remember that under the new “terrorist” law people can simply disappear. #1vs5i
We are mere chattels within a corporation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=25&v=iAbvniSuovk
Gee. That “mission creep” must have been a surprise. Since when were increased police powers restricted to the stated reasons for their implementation. One could say naivety if this were the first time but given the lessons of history, cheerleading this can only be thought of as complicity in the narrative that supports authoritarianism
That story makes no sense – he is in a half way house where he presumably was when he committed the offences last year and he appears to be on home detention on bail. If he was Maori he would be unlikely to be in the community. I question how a person who is facing charges of rape, assault with intent to injure, threatening to kill and two sexual violations with previous convictions is not remanded in jail. I am focusing on the criminal because the scope creep is a given. In Christchurch the cops really didn’t want to give their guns back so there will always be a crisis
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