Everything the new commissioner of police has done – since his appointment, has been in my view, exemplary.
This response is no exception.
What a breath of fresh air.
What a difference to Mike Bush who, in my view, represented the old guard whether by intention of accident.
Mike Bush- Old Guard?
How would I know? Apparently, I was one of them.
Ross Meurant, B.A. M.P.P. former police inspector, former MP, currently international businessman and Honorary Consul for an African state.
TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com
Yes, he has hasn’t he. Perhaps not so much ‘old guard’ or ‘new guard’, but a different sort of person – and vive la difference.
Interesting Ross – please keep us updated on your thoughts which from your perspective and experience, count for something.
I refer to my comment about what seems a fine ground-breaking move by New Jersey police in USA.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/06/20/the-daily-blog-open-mic-saturday-20th-june-2020/#comment-511559
Musing on how police decide who to watch to prevent crime. There seems a lot of emphasis on being punitive about small infractions with the idea of being present and ready to act so as to deter bad behaviour. If the activity went into giving young fellers and women something positive to go for, to get them past those teen and early twenty years where crime habits can start, it would pay society with better results for a harmonious place.
Just thinking. Somebody might have said those who rely on rules, are fools. Tighten or increase the number of rules, and we will all be criminals sometime. That seems to be the system being adopted in China. In racist societies, if you are the wrong colour you have already stepped over the line, and will be dealt with severely no matter what minor infraction you may do. Why can’t they be interpreted with heart, not heartless?
Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law. Oliver Goldsmith Author – Profession: Poet Nationality: Irish Born: 1730 Died: 1774 https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/oliver_goldsmith_403444
Overweening rules encourage standover responses from officers of the law on people of little ‘account’. A Canadian black man tells of his family out in the car, a visiting relative throws a tissue out of the window. Panic rises – ‘Do you know what you did? Don’t you realise we are all black here. (No white person to alleviate the anti-black hegemony.) As a result a following police car stops them, and they apologise profusely, relative gets out and picks up tissue. (https://torontolife.com/city/life/skin-im-ive-interrogated-police-50-times-im-black/)
If we changed rules to guidelines except for serious crime, acted in a way to respect all people it would be likely we had a good society, and if we wanted parents and children to have a good life we would all have the same goals and less crime. Rules would be reduced to those that suited both citizens and government, with less interaction needed and less violence. I note someone in NZ caught spraypainting recently said he was rammed against wall by police. A ‘good’ citizen knifed a young fellow dead in NZ and got off lightly, some years ago. At present, the word ‘overkill’ has come into prominence; that is not good.
Interesting reading the NZ First approach to speeding drivers. You can tell a Party is mind-boggling conservative when it can’t stop revving though it’s obviously never going to move from the bog it’s in. No
new ideas, just flaccid middle-class disapproval of everything that doesn’t fit their creed of MeFirst and acceptable conformity.
New Zealand First has a member’s bill whichwould see increased penalties and stricter accountability for fleeing drivers and would correct current holes in the legislation.
“There needs to be a re-think of how we approach and deal with fleeing drivers. Whatever is happening now is clearly not working with continued sky-rocketing numbers – and with no end to even more record numbers in sight, says Mr Ball.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2006/S00206/fleeing-drivers-hit-new-record-high-yet-again.htm
A few random pinball thoughts. NZ First are just a waste of space. Time for NZ politics to wake up, climb out of its coffin, take some deep breaths and start walking and working for the people using advice they have given government.
First task would be to save money on government advisors starting with abandonment of Treasury. Audits of NZ Government departments to be carried out by overseas entities not part of 5 Eyes which should save us some corruption. Additional funds for beneficial projects for police can be obtained by sacking Treasury and contracting different parts of their work out to private interests for 5 year terms. The choice to be ascertained by drawing the contractor from a group of five contenders in a hat, done on television by a member of the public after inspection by the Chief Justice.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300038459/live-auckland-police-to-be-armed-after-officer-shot-dead-in-west-auckland
This makes me wonder and ask – why do people have to be stopped as part of a normal practice?
He said it was a routine traffic stop to keep the public safe.
There was nothing to suggest anything was out of the ordinary.
The other officer remains in a serious condition and the member of the public is in a minor condition.
Enquires are ongoing to locate the offender.
“Our priority is to support our officers and locate the offender as soon as possible.”
GREYWARBLER
The chances of a ‘routine traffic stop’ on Remuera Road (which I traverse very day), is – well! I haven’t seen one on a decade – other than drink drive road checks over the Silly Season.
If I look back I time – when I was a detective in the seventies- we performed ‘routine traffic stops’; predictability in – Ponsonby, Grey Lynn, Newton, Mt Albert, Avondale, Mt Roskill, Balmoral, Royal Oak, Onehunga, Ellerslie, Glen Innes and even more predictably, when the vehicles were (a) known to police and (b) the driver or occupant was known or (c) the car and occupants looked like shit heads who in the middle of the day, were obviously – avoiding work or didn’t work.
These were the signs which precipitated ‘routine traffic stops’.
It’s a culture – and culture is handed down the generations.
Its being, Deep in the Forest – even though, in ones early days in the police, one may not have realised: try this link
http://202.49.69.66/pma/hr271007a.htm
Post Script
Having offered the above explanation, I must say – that there are some serious shit heads out there and we do rely on the police to ‘catch’ them.
“Routine traffic stops” are a misleading label, so maybe its time for police hierarchy to step up and justify ‘targeted traffic stops’.
Who will complain if the police tell the truth?
Ross M Post Script. In the 70’s there were probably not as many tinted car windows as there are nowadays, when the police often can’t ascertain the ethnicity of the occupants until they stop them – that’s assuming that the car does stop, and that the cops don’t get shot.
Similarly on badly-lit night streets, it may not be possible to see the colour of the occupants until they’ve stopped the car, and in both instances miscreants may wail that they’ve been profiled because they’re Maori.
Children out driving cars at night may also not be readily identifiable as kids either – that’ll be solved when we’re all micro-chipped like cats and dogs.
It’s a shame that the police can’t necessarily say that a car had been reported stolen, or reported associated with a crime/ whatever, but that can raise privacy issues, and human rights issues – and some total shit gets a payout.
Yes tell the truth and stand by it, encourages the public to do the same.
Guns – better control we are now hearing truth about police failures, possibly they were underfunded and busy at the time proper procedures were not followed. We remember that a policeperson was shot at Aramoana, by that bloody nutter. We want the police to be part of the goodies – we have a simple approach in that.
And about driving and car stealing – more warnings, and putting people through compulsory retraining for driving along with personal life coaching with mentors, and sitting driving licences. We have a shortage of bus drivers in NZ, the older ones if they could settle and mature, could be driving these big things, and if government could give bus drivers decent regulations, that would solve two gaps in our system. Innovative policies like that could cut problems down by 10% each year, surely achievable, and the downward result would show up as police effectiveness and success.
The police association is playing coy and letting the media do their groundwork to allow them to routine arm. They will.
Police weren’t underfunded fir administering firearms, they simply decided not to spend all the money from licensing on what it was meant to be for, then they took an axe to the vetting system.
Let’s hope there are lawsuits incoming so someone is held accountable.
The Christchurch shooting is on their upper management. Bush was knighted or whatever and exited stage left just before the story broke didn’t he? (Story actually broke after the shooting and was buried by the Li e cops vetted Tarrant properly , re leaked now before the royal commission to soften the PR hit)
Word is the police shooting on Friday was with a Chinese Knock off AK47, one of the guns that Nash got all of.
Unfortunately, through police ineptitude and labour green government stupidity in ramming through bad law, NZ is much less safe, most estimates assume 100000 guns at least driven underground, more to come now they are banning pump action rifles and re introducing a register.
Nash is an idiot.
The crims are arming, the cops will arm. The citizens will suffer.
Gosh USA – French – have they all gone to that talked about Israeli police training session. Or is this a heretofore unrealised affect from Covid-19?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/419678/french-delivery-driver-s-suffocation-death-prompts-investigation-into-police
Cédric Chouviat, a 42-year-old father-of-five, reportedly said he couldn’t breathe seven times in 22 seconds as the officers appeared to pin him down.
He died in hospital two days after the arrest. A coroner later ruled he’d died of asphyxia and a broken larynx.
The officers have previously said they stopped Chouviat for looking at his phone while riding his scooter, and for having a dirty licence plate, French newspaper Le Monde reported.
Sounds like an excuse for overkill – looking at phone and a dirty licence plate! Probably has dirty fingernails too and a tattoo which will prove that he was a member of a secret, anarchist criminal gang and they might find in one of his pockets a small plastic bag with white powder! We lose trust after a while don’t we.
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