Fatal Taranaki police shooting: Police accused of insensitivity over Kaoss Price’s death
A lawyer representing the whānau of a Taranaki man shot and killed by police says statements by police about the incident are insensitive.
Kaoss Price was shot after he rammed a police car on State Highway 3 between New Plymouth and Waitara on Saturday night.
The 22-year-old was not carrying a firearm.
Kaoss Price generates very little sympathy.
He committed violent acts built upon a violent upbringing of his damaged life.
If he was attempting to carjack another vehicle to continue ramming Police or bystanders, most will see that as justification by Police to shoot.
But the simple truth is we don’t know what the hell has happened here.
Was he shot twice?
Was he attempting to escape?
What actual threat was he posing?
These are essential details the Police have not released.
They are allowing his character assassination in the publics mind to justify their actions as opposed to an actual timeline of what happened.
Any time the State’s actions lead to the death of a person, that action must be scrutinised and justified at the highest levels.
RNZ has done a withering expose on how trigger happy NZ Police are when it comes to shooting Kiwis. NZ Police are shooting NZers at 11 times the rates of Welsh or English Police.
One of the fundamental problems is that NZ Police are poorly trained when it comes to firearms and critics complain of a gung ho culture – why aren’t Police de-escalating events and preferring to open fire?
Almost 25% of those fatally shot had mental health issues, surely that alone demands some reflection from the Police?
10 out of of those 39 killed were shot in the back by Police, doesn’t that demand some reflection?
In 25 of the 35 cases the person killed had not injured another person before being shot. In eight cases they had damaged property. In 17 shootings the person killed had not done any damage at all. Where is the moral justification of opening fire in situations where there isn’t an actual threat or damage?
In 20% of cases investigated by the IPCA they found Police actions escalated events and put Officers into positions where shooting was the only option – surely a percentage as large as that – 20% demands a culture change within the Police?
I argued recently that one reason why the sudden jump in Police pepper spraying children is because the size requirements to be a Police Officer were relaxed to allow more minorities to becomes Police and the inadvertent conclusion of that decision was Police who were more reliant on weapons to assert dominance.
Combine this with lax firearm training and we have a Police force staffed by people who are too reliant on weapons to assert control.
It is not acceptable to have social policy as indifferent as this no matter who is dying.
Kaoss Price was a human being. Beyond the many reasons we may hold up to claim he deserves little sympathy, he was one of us and deserved a response to his actions that was proportionate to the threat he posed.
If we lose sight of that in the emotional backlash of him as a figure deserving of our sympathy, we have lost more than he has.
We all await the review and trust the system to be honest here.
A human life has been lost. Social policy in a liberal progressive democracy that is ruled by law must ask why that is and how to avoid it in the future without putting other lives at risk.
If Justice truly matters to you, let’s wait until the process has had the opportunity to transparently explain the timeline.
So say all of us.
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Being a cop must be very difficult. Unlike almost any other profession, you sometimes have to make life or death decisions on the spot. No consultation. No ‘phone a friend’. No advisory committee or working group. Just you, this second.
What is clear is that Price was a danger to society and the cop reacted to what? Whatever the circumstances they were, will be determined and made public in due course. Meanwhile my thoughts go to the cop who is under investigation.
You are correct that Police have a difficult job & Price did not help his cause by his behavior however a fair investigation is the most reasonable way to clear the air over this incident. In my mind that involves the presumption of innocence for both parties and an independent entity with an excellent reputation providing the facts.
What’s good is that we haven’t seen civil unrest and celebrating the reinactment of colonial policing and you, Andrew, want to make it all about the cop for another generational narritive just speaks to your undefferentiated thought and we shouldn’t cram it all into one thing like that just
-nurse that resentment
It’s easy to sit and judge police who, let’s face it, have to deal with situations that most people would rather run a mile from. That said there are certainly examples where “ reflection” is a euphemism for ‘are you serious’? The mentally unwell bloke they shot dead just south of Warkworth who had dropped a knife and was running in the opposite direction to the police, as he was gunned down, being one of them.
The simple truth is we don’t know what happened? Of course.
What we do know, immediately, that some would have it, that the victim ‘deserved what he got’ or on the other hand, the cops are cold blooded murderers.
We have personally come from having all the answers to the science and medicine of the coronavirus, the logistical elements of handling it in a community and moderating the economic impacts to being experts in an incident at night in Taranaki.
If only we were there it would have been handled better. If only we were in charge of police training things would have been better. If only we were in charge Kaoss would not have been there. If we were in charge he would not have been the sort of person he was.
If we were in charge cops wouldn’t have been out patrolling because they would never be needed. If only we were in charge 500 cops would have been out in Taranaki that night and things wouldn’t have got that far.
If we were in charge the full, total, complete, exact, comprehensive story would have been out the day after the incident.
If one word is out of place, or seems out of place, one hair not explained or accounted for, in 2062 there’ll be conjecture and stories and myths and legends about the incident.
The reports of what happened have to be beyond exquisite and perfect.
Regardless, everyone knows that the words ‘Kaoss cover-up’ will be heard.
The experts who would have handled the incident and the policing job better? Sign up, they’re always looking for perfect people. Too old? Demand your descendents sign up. They can take your perfect genes with them. The job apparently is a piece of piss.
Problem is, cops dealing with a confrontational situation don’t know if the aggressor has mental health issues.
And even if they did, it’s not clear how knowing this will necessarily help in any particular situation. Police officers deal with this in domestic call outs at a truly frightening daily rate, and I’m pretty keen to see what progress, if any, Green co-leader Marama Davidson has made in getting family violence sorted.
They may need more dogs, dunno. One cop who came when I had an intruder, came alone, brave man, and the more recent one last year, was also alone but he had a dog with him, which was excellent with all the trees, bushes, hiding places and few outside lights. Years ago we watched a gang member pull a knife on a cop responding to an afternoon burglary in progress next door which I’d phoned them about, and the police dog leapt at the burglar’s wrist and the man dropped the knife.
Give people guns to do a job and they’ll use them. The police are no different to our soldiers and in the end innocent people get killed – it’s inevitable.
Patrick Lyoya in the US was face down on the ground when a police officer put a gun to the back of his head and pulled the trigger.
For some reason being a police officer grants you the right to commit extra judicial killings and murder.
patrick loyala also had taken possession of the policemans tazer.
some are saying the tazer had already been discharged, but in fact they can be used without the prongs by pushing the tazer directly into the skin.
there was a clear and present tazer to the policeman and he probably did the right thing.
he will also get done for murder.
who would want to be a cop?
We do know this from past cases:
The police usually get in early and saturate the media with information that justifies their actions and is usually totally prejudicial toward the deceased.
In this case that didn’t happen.
The question is why did it not happen? Have the police moved toward a more fair and balanced policy or is it for other reasons?
May Kaoss rest but it won’t be in peace untill you pronounce his name properly like ‘KO’s’
When you militarize the police force this leads to an escalation of ‘legitimate’ violence.
This is definitely the case in America and it is becoming apparent here.
When you militarize the police force this leads to an escalation of ‘legitimate’ violence.
This is definitely the case in America and it is becoming apparent here.
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