WAATEA NEWS COLUMN: The frightening new stats highlighting NZ Police Taser racism

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A deeply concerning new report, Understanding Police Delivery, highlights a frightening new level of NZ Police taser racism.

It finds that NZ Police are repeatedly using Tasers against Māori men because they perceive Māori men as more of a physical threat rather than actually being a threat.

  • One in five taser “events” in the six-month period was at a family harm event.
  • Males were nearly 10 times more likely to be tasered (over 85 percent of all tactical operations/use of force reports involved a male).
  • 92 percent of TASER events involved men, and 90 percent of TASER discharge events.
  • “The threshold for threat is considerably lower than that for females.”
  • “In some cases, men were tasered for non-compliance or to gain control over a situation when no physical threat or weapon was present.”

Remember, Police are only allowed to use a Taser if there is an immediate threat of violence, what the stats are telling us is Police are reaching for their Taser for mere compliance and because they see Māori men as an immediate threat.

We have two rules here, one for Māori men and one for everyone else.

This level of bias should shock Kiwis, but in the current environment of anti-Māori and anti-Treaty bashing, I fear this report may sink beneath the surface again.

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32 COMMENTS

  1. And then Mitchell with all his fear tactics bullshit to win votes finds out NZ has just been granted in the global index the prowess of being the 4th safetest country in the world.

    • Hahahah, are you referring to the joke that is the ‘Global Peace Index’ made up by some weird Australian freak that barely takes crime rates into account at all, and mainly classifies countries as not ‘peaceful’ if the US doesn’t like their independent foreign policy?

  2. Actually looks like it’s men being discriminated against, 10 fold taserings!
    Oh the inequity.
    All on Costers watch.

    • Why don’t you read the article which makes the point that Maori men were being tasered even though they were not a threat. We are not going to complain if taser’s are used to end a dangerous situation but police deciding to pass judgment on a situation based only on the ethnicity of those involved is not appropriate.

    • Are they intimidatingly larger than you Andrew? It’s OK, keep hunching over when you sit down and avoiding exercise.

  3. If there’s racism, there’s surely sexism, no? Or is one to believe that it is valid to disproportionately target men, but not disproportionately target Maori?

    • Mohammed K Well yes, there is sexism as evidenced at Albert Park where police allowed women to be silenced and worse, in favour of transgendered persons, but real men per se, were invisible.

  4. From the days when I worked as a fisherman.
    I(a Pakeha) walk down to Fisherman’s Wharf in Tauranga at 3.00am to take the boat out.
    Police car drives by- ignores me. This happens every morning for weeks. Police ignore solitary pakeha male going to work.
    One morning I encounter two Maori fishermen going to crew a new boat. We stroll along together. Police car goes by and -stops. Cops get out.
    ” It is all right, you can keep going’ cop says to me.
    Something in his tone nettles me and I say. “No I’ll wait – we are all going to the same boat.’
    Cop, ‘It is nothing to do with you. Move on.’
    ‘I don’t want to.’ I stay where I am
    A dirty look is given. Then he starts to question the two Maori blokes, their names, addresses, why they are here. Occasionally glances at me to see if I am going away.
    This goes on for about five minutes, then cops mutter together and buzz off. We continue to work. As we do the two Maori blokes tell me this is completely usual for them.
    We also discover we are cousins with the same tipuna in Ngati Tama iwi.
    Of course the difference is they look Maori and I do not.

  5. Martyn – Sad statistics.
    I wonder if there are any statistics on the Police Officers using the Taser. Such as Age, Length of Service, Ethnicity, Number, if any, formal complaints against the Officer…

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