Deaths from Police car chases are our mass shooting public policy failure
Surely public policy should hold public safety above all else, yet Police Chase Policy manages to have an open ended kill threshold – why is that?
It’s because we are a juvenile culture with all the maturity of a can of coke-cola.
We unquestioningly worship the Police in this country and I think it’s a cultural chip on our shoulder from our colonial settler forebears. Our settler Great-great-great-grandparents would nervously eye all those angry Māori youth gathering on the edges of their settlements and call in the mounted constabulary to bash the living Christ out of them cementing into place a culture of turning a blind eye to police abuse of power.
Yes we knew the Police were brutal but we were thankful they eliminated the uncomfortable threat our colonialism created, so when the once every couple of months debate of Police chase policy rears its ugly head, the sleepy hobbits of muddle Nu Zilind immediately clamour to scream their support for the Police no matter what.
According to the sleepy hobbits of muddle Nu Zilind, if we allow (like most other developed countries) to only chase people when serious threat is established then the criminals win, cats and dogs start living together and planes will fall from the sky.
Apparently Western Civilisation as we know it will come to an end.
Here are the facts. Anyone under the age of 25 does not have the full development of their frontal lobes meaning they can’t readily appreciate the consequences of their actions so when the sirens go on they panic and go into a flight or fight mode. Likewise the alpha male cops doing the chasing go into a ‘red mist’ mindset and just start hunting.
The claim that Police Coms takes over the chase is sophistry – example after example after example show Coms calls a chase off but pursuing Cops are too caught up in the adrenalin of the moment and don’t listen to commands to stop or call off a chase.
The amount of radio fault excuses held up by pursuing Police as the reason why they didn’t get the message from Coms to call off a chase is the real identifier of how pointless current policy is.
No other Government agency gets to kill members of the public with the speed and glee of the Police and we as a culture allow them to do that because NZers worship the cops.
The ever growing death toll of people killed by the Police pursuit policy and our inability to acknowledge the cops have got it wrong is our culture’s mass shooting public policy failure.
The only way any of this changes is the moment a police pursuit kills a bunch of middle class white teenagers, on that day the very mountains will shake and the Sun blotted from the sky as the demands that ‘something must be done’ explode throughout the land of the long white cloud because in NZ, it’s only when the white middle classes feel the effect of defective social policy that any reform occurs.
It is just another example of lack of accountability in this corrupt, unsustainable society.
And it is just another example of what goes wrong when the extraction of oil is subsidised and the ongoing costs are transferred away from the oil companies and onto society in general.
I see our police force are still dumb and some are lazy. They also have a entrenched culture of racism. I have experienced it first hand a policeman doing a u turn to pull us over and when we asked why he made something up as we hadn’t done anything wrong we were just the wrong colour and they were doing some ethnic profiling while sitting in their car.
“The only way any of this changes is the moment a police pursuit kills a bunch of middle class white teenagers, ”
I think even that wouldn’t do it. I think the day it changes is when the police themselves either directly kill someone (e.g. hit a pedestrian/crash into an oncoming vehicle) or themselves (e.g. they lose control of the cop car and hit a tree or something). All the deaths to date, afaik, are attributable solely to the driver of the apprehended vehicle, which is why everyone is ok with it even when it is obviously a direct result of the chase.
No winners with a right wing policy of hash reaction to youth as they are hardly able to comprehend the situation as the police chase was occurring because the youth today don’t see the world in black and white due to acting when playing the video games they are ‘subjected to today’s video games.
I see the newspapers are already justifying the Police actions in this by
discrediting the driver and his passenger who also died.
I heard a radio presenter say this morning talking about drivers that flee should receive a heavy penalty including confiscating their car. Really! you cant get any worse then dying. What cold hearted bastards.
Don’t worry Martyn the police cover up complaints authority is on the job, all will be well.
So what is the answer Martyn, do we allow these reckless drivers open slather on the road so they can do what they want, doughnuts, wheelies you name it. How many times do you, as a driver see these maniacs driving about on our roads menacing and threatening innocent drivers who are trying to keep their wits about them surviving their journeys.
With this age of technology surely there is something that can disable these cars when they are found to be a serious risk to others – a dart which can be fired and attached to the offending vehicle with a tracker attached. The police could then pull back and let the offenders go – but radio ahead for backup and apprehend them further up the road.
Why the hell should innocent people be killed by these young people. No frontal lobe decificies should be offered as an excuse, these kids are what they are, weren’t we all, but to be in charge of high powered vehicles and prowling about menacing other innocent drivers is a societal problem – the police have a shit job as it is – give them the technology to stop these people.
Car manufacturer’s have, most certainly the technology to disable a car and only allow a key holder to be able to drive it. Not even hot wiring them will make the bloody thing start. This would, for a start, stop these young people stealing a high powered modern car and wreaking havoc. Maybe the car manufacturer’s should be pulled up and made responsible, it can be done. It also can be done to disable phone use in the driver’s seat, or the entire car whatever the needs be – just the will isn’t there.
If we take cops off the road it would be anarchy fullstop.
Western Civilisation as we know it would end, eh?
Anyone under the age of 25 does not have the full development of their frontal lobes meaning they can’t readily appreciate the consequences of their actions so when the sirens go on they panic and go into a flight or fight mode…
You churn out this insulting drivel every time some murdering shits kill other people with their car. For the record:
1. No it’s not “anyone.” People under 25 are stopped by Police all the time without incident. Only a tiny proportion of them turn out to be murderously aggressive or stupid.
2. If your claim were correct, society would be well advised to ban people under 25 from driving or engaging in any other activities for which appreciation of the consequences of your actions are required, which is a hell of a lot of things.
If you can’t/won’t accept the responsibility for what your car does when you’re driving it, don’t drive. The blame for this incident, like all the others, was the person holding the steering wheel in the car that caused the crash – no-one else bears responsibility.
2 things Psycho
1 – you are simply not up to date on the latest science behind brain development and you sound terribly ignorant.
2 – You are a very special type of NZer
A Very Special Sort of New Zealander « Chris Trotter – https://buff.ly/2HrivYd #nzpol
Aha! Another white colonialist settler…
The ass-is tant police commissioner said on the news last night quote “we need to reach out to them” re- crime really! they didn’t give a shit when a bunch of college girls stole our only cell phone. Here was an opportunity to do some crime prevention work (nip it in the bud before they go on to bigger and worse things ) too much watching American programs they would rather do illegal searches and raids on mansions than deal with petty crime that can lead to worse crims.