Armed Police at Ihumātao is a provocation!
After the outrageous overkill of the Police presence at Ihumātao that saw this…
…Police were supposed to have responded to criticism that they were enflaming the situation by standing down and we had the lovely Police Officer playing the guitar…
..but revelations today show that there are armed Police at Ihumātao…
Ihumātao: Police deny carrying firearms at protest after Facebook video outcry
Police were made aware of the video on Sunday, initially telling Stuff they believed the post was fake. The police later confirmed that officers removed firearms from two vehicles behind a cordon, which separates the police from protesters, some fifteen metres from the protest site.
“We have armed response capability available in the event of an emergency but the staff are not carrying firearms on their person.”
…notice the first response was to lie about being armed until they couldn’t keep that lie up.
What threat do the police believe is at Ihumātao that requires guns?
By having armed Police at this site of all sites, to have the Police doing exactly what they did almost 170 years ago is a disgrace that will only enflame this situation.
There is no need for armed Police at Ihumātao unless the Police intend to use those guns.
So do they?
It sounds like they were transferring the hardware to another squad car to get them off the site. So they couldn’t get pinched from the designated site squad car. Did the vehicle that received the equipment then leave the site? If so then, that’s what happened.
Well I haven’t seen any riot gear just laying around. Y’know you can only use the tools that are available.
For the love of Christ, we get that the police want to connect with the public, but put the guitar back in the case and start doing some real police work. Use our tax payer funds to round up the fast and furious driving the wrong way up the motorway, the celebrity meth peddlers with name suppression, or murderer groomsmen who might murder again.
At Ihumatao a police officer waved his hand towards the police front line and said to me “It all looks very intimidating”.
I assured him that we were not intimidated.
The protectors of Ihumatao need not be intimidated or provoked by anything that the New Zealand Police might do.
When the will of God and the will of the people align, as they do here, firearms will not alter the final outcome.
The New Zealand Police are no longer unarmed as they once were. They routinely have guns close by in their vehicles and offices and sometimes carry those weapons on their persons.
So there will be police firearms at or around Ihumatao, but the intention will be to keep them out of sight.
If the police were to use firearms against the protectors of Ihumatao it would signal the end of the regime. No “ifs” or “buts” about it. The New Zealand government knows that, the New Zealand Police know that, we all know that, and so we can be quietly confident that it will not happen.
You are right Martyn. The cops should have left the machine guns at home.
while I am sure 99.9% of protestors are genuine you only need 1 hot head from either side to ignite a time bomb. I think the police played a clever hand by reminding people that their guns are ready if needed.
State intimidation. Awesome.
like they (guns) were ready in the Te Urewera raids they were SO ready they had them pointed at kids and old people