Veteran activist John Minto unlawfully pepper-sprayed and arrested at protest – IPCA
Police unlawfully pepper-sprayed and arrested veteran activist John Minto at a pro-Palestinian protest in Christchurch in February 2024, the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) has found.
The 70-year-old was charged with obstructing and resisting police during a Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa protest in Lyttelton on Waitangi Day, though charges were later dropped.
A police investigation concluded their actions were lawful, but that the officer had failed in his duty “to provide aftercare” after pepper-spraying Minto.
But the IPCA has found both the pepper-spraying and the arrest itself were unlawful.
In a letter from IPCA chair Judge Kenneth Johnston KC, he stated the authority found “a number of inconsistencies” between the account of the officer and video footage of the incident, which “led us to doubt the genuineness” of the officer’s version of why he had used the pepper-spray.
The IPCA did “not accept” the police version that Minto had moved from where he was standing, or that the officer could have perceived Minto presented a real threat.
The cops bashed and illegally pepper sprayed John last year at a protest against Israel’s war crimes.
It’s fascinating that the Cops are there to protect the war criminals and hurt protestors.
The IPCA, who are usually a lickspittle for the cops, found Minto’s case to be so extreme, they were forced to actually disagree with the cop report.
Here are their findings…
…this matters.
This matters a lot.
John Minto is the conscience of this country, he is one of the best known protestors and fighters for social justice.
If the pigs can bash John, pepper spray him and illegally arrest him, then the pigs can do it to anyone of us!
The Cops are not your friend.
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Talking of heroes, where has Nicky Hager gone?
Quite interesting, the role of heroes on the Left. I suppose we really should be adults and do our own thinking rather than trust in ‘great men’. But we are all looking for some shorthand to get through this complicated modern world.
John is doing a great job standing up for people who are suffering while most of our politicians and authority figures would prefer to ignore the issue. I was surprised that he got such a decent decision from the IPCA as I am more used to them providing tame decisions.
i agree, minto needed a far worse dealing too than that. what an absolute muppet, seriously ill pay his flight to gaza.
Some of the comments above remind me of what can go wrong with a society where everyone can have an opinion and can expect to be treated equally. The reason I write that is because fools too can have an opinion and who needs the opinions of fools one might ask.
What we must also be mindful off is who are those fools above who seem adept at inflaming the liver to produce the bile of the mind. Are they paid? Are they coached and trained? I think it’s reasonable to suspect they are. Machiavellian confederates despatched to here to cause dis-ease and ugly friction.
The worst thing we can do to them in this case is to ignore them and support the ever fabulous John Minto. What a guy! He gets beaten by our cops because he loves. He gets abused by embarrassingly and morbidly unintelligent emotionally retarded voters with the same privileges as the rest of us as a direct result of people like John Minto who defend those same terminal fools and their right to express themselves. Who else do you know that we can say that about? Does the ancient concept of the Jesus ring a bell?
police should have used more force!!!
Like they did with you, you have brain damage.
Minto bar instead?
“Trumpet” – brother of “Bob the Fart”?
How, why, where? What’s your point. You should explain it otherwise you’re just a squeaky toy to throw to the dog, they love them , we don’t.
Please explain why.
” police should have used more force!!!”
Definitely.
Against people who think and act like you.
Grow up Trumpet!
Tricky for them to believe the pigs when they had seen the footage. He was one of four people who were pepper sprayed on the day. Not for protesting but for filming and being at the protest. Most of it was done by one cop.
Police smack around Pro-Palestine protestors but not Brian Tamaki’s thugs.
On a larger scale, just finished watching a documentary. United States veterans of the “Battle of Mogadishu’ stated that United States military intervention in Somalia was necessary because Somali warlords prevented distribution of United Nations food aid to starving people.
What is another place where a warlord is preventing food from going to starving people? Not in Africa but near – starts with G – Ga something, Gaz….Anyway this evil warlord called Netanyahu is starving people by denying them food and medicine – like in Somalia.
So when can we expect the United States to intervene then?
I think Brian’s boys are a bit bigger, and a bit more enthusiastic.
Bit late with this comment dude.
” If the pigs can bash John, pepper spray him and illegally arrest him, then the pigs can do it to anyone of us! ”
Yeah it fits perfectly with the direction this corrupt , austere , extreme government is taking the country.
We need John Minto and his firepower in the resistance to this government and its policies.
We should all stand in solidarity with John Minto. He was singled out as the victim of a vicious assault by the forces of evil precisely because he is a force for good. The judgement of the IPCA is also a tacit recognition that the world is watching how it deals with both John, his assailant, and the assault. In a democracy the police officer who assaulted John would have been charged and convicted for his crime. The IPCA would not go that far, but its ruling is still an admission that John’s moral standing in the community makes untenable the normal cover-up of wrong doing by the New Zealand police.
Minto and his rent-a-mob should all have been arrested for openly supporting a proscribed jihadist terrorist group – rapists, murderers, kidnappers who carried out the worst pogrom on jews since the Holocaust – as well as inconveniencing the public with their futile antics. “Conscience of this country”???? LMAO.
Police won’t be worrying about the result.
Police have weathered far worse, they’re not trying to make friends.
None of them suffer personal expense over the affair, their objective is intimidation, expense and maximum personal grief to the object of their ire. They will, because they can. Job well done in their eyes, little will change.
Hundreds of similar incidents occur regularly, without repercussion.
I agree with Bradbury’s last sentence.