“Incredible Work” Killing Tom Phillips – Did Armed Police hunt 9 and 10 year olds?
He was always going to be gunned down by police – we all knew how it would end. A Lee Harvey Oswald looking guy you know how it ends. He’s that sort of person – the sort of person who goes bush with his kids. And the NZ Police are that sort of a police force – the sort of police force who when they make up their mind to kill someone will kill someone. That’s what happened yesterday with the death of “fugitive father” Tom Phillips on a remote Waikato road – his 12 year old daughter with him, unharmed thank God. The other two children found at their campsite safe and sound just before dark last night, thank God. One police officer is in hospital, recovering from injuries.
If we understand that in New Zealand the police are cowards, bullies and liars, and that the journalists are woefully inept and that the public are credulous boot-licking authoritarians we can see this for what it is rather than the servile nonsense being dished up by the media and mindlessly echoed by mindless people. Based on the wholesale deceptions of the NZ Police up until this point in time they cannot be trusted at all – at all – in anything they say without confirmation by other parties being produced. Unless it is externally verified, I wouldn’t trust a single thing they say.
The NZ Police were always going to lie about it too. They can’t help themselves. The lies started almost immediately and I will go through it so we can see things a bit more clearly.
The lies were enabled at every step by the credulous hopeless NZ media whose embarrassingly weak questions at the police press conferences yesterday as the situation developed was a reminder of how the media have earned the high levels of public distrust shown in the last few years of opinion polling. The journalists were pathetic – they cannot adequately perform their task of holding institutions and public power to account. The journalists are just too damn thick – that’s mostly it – they are just dummies who have no clue what to ask when the crucial moment comes. The journalists’ servility to police compounds the lack of wits to result in sub-standard reports that are merely police PR.
The police are the killers in this case, but the journalists in NZ don’t seem to comprehend that. The police statements are claims made by the killers – that’s how their communications must be viewed. The killers have the reason of a murder charge to tell lies to get out of it – but that motivation somehow evaporates in the media’s telling of the story. The NZ media will run NZ Police copy as if it were fact from the outset. The killer’s version of events – that’s what the media in this country are running.
The public are mindlessly repeating the nonsense the media are mindlessly repeating from NZ Police HQ – it is entirely moronic. I despair of NZ civil society in times like this because the innate instinct of the average Kiwi, including lefties, is that reflexive, automatic, unthinking, unblinking acceptance (and then repetition) of the police narrative as gospel seemingly on the basis that police would never lie because they are the police who never lie. Moronic isn’t it, cretinous at least? It is a enduring and troubling fault in the national psyche that has allowed police to murder without consequence. Every other government institution the average lefty would be sceptical of, would query, would second-guess, or would maintain outright distrust of, but,… not the police. The ones who lie the most are the ones they have the highest regards as to their veracity!
The police are also relentless braggards. No one ups the cops like the cops. The only organisation that would ever refer to their own members as heroes. Not a scintilla of humility ever. The public lap it up, but it is delusional. They gunned down a father in front of his daughter and an officer was badly injured and the Police Commissioner says what?
“This is a result of incredible work by Police who had to contend with a high-risk situation and difficult circumstances…” Hate to see what poor work looked like if a dead Dad, traumatised child and a wounded cop is classed as incredible. The Commissioner’s statement of self-assessment is utterly insane.
Is it a person’s fear of their own cowardice in the face of danger that drives this societal foible of accepting this conduct and this obvious bullshit? Can we not handle the truth – as the movie line goes? Is a person so quick – pre-emptive even – in forgiving any magnitude of force against a social transgressor because they themselves would pull the trigger if they were a cop? The average person in NZ is apathetic and complacent, sure, but to make them well-rounded they are also gutless and cowardly. What the average person admires in the police is the ability of them to respond to their gutless cowardice by shooting someone to kill them – that is somehow brave to a gutless coward. And the other disturbing bit is the no questions asked part – they don’t want to know, they don’t want to hear it. Rainbows, lollipops, unicorns, police killed someone, candy canes, marshmallows… Police never kill anyone without a good reason, eh, right? Therefore… they can never wrongly kill anyone ipso facto. To me it makes them a murderer, to the average person it makes them a hero. This logic ensures no NZ police officer on duty has ever been convicted of a killing… yet.
Last night on the BHN live podcast was a perfect example as the otherwise reliably solid Chewie just repeated and then embellished the police version of the Phillips killing in a simplistic and unevidenced rant, making up shit as he went along as he re-enacted what he thought happened. To use his choice words from last night (and to which his co-host didn’t flinch at all by the way) “you army of retards!”
For Chewie’s information, and everyone else, from my years of blogging on the subject of police killings and the IPCA I could cite many reasons and many incidents to not trust what police say, but the one that stands out to me happened in the same police district – near Paeroa – in 2016 when a police car filled with officers rolled up to Mike Taylor’s house, and in front of his wife and children, the cops from inside the car with the windows wound up mind you – WITH THE WINDOWS UP – and without even stopping, opened fire on him and shot him through the windows of their police car and killed him. So, excuse me if I don’t take a very close look at the aerial shot of that police car and where the bullet holes are in the windscreen because the cops in that district have done drive-by’s before. He threw a garden implement at them and they shot him to pieces like it was a hit by Al Capone. They gunned him down like a dog on his own property – without even leaving the car. That’s what happened – and then the IPCA let them all off as they do. The whole thing from the first press statement to the last was a pack of lies and deceptions. That’s a fact. That’s why I’m sceptical.
Let’s just go through the statements and what we know reliably from media as opposed to what the police claim are facts to work out if the NZ Police are up to their old tricks and what questions should have been asked of Acting Deputy Commissioner Jill Rogers at her three press conferences yesterday. Here are my observations:
- There is reference to Phillips having an arrest warrant for failure to attend Family Court, but there is no reference anywhere to anything like kidnapping or anything to suggest his custody of his children was not lawful. The insinuation has been he has “kidnapped” them – but it seems not. It isn’t clear either if the mother is automatically going to have custody if there are Family Court matters. There was an injunction ordered last night by someone on behalf of the Phillips side, so it may be a complicated situation and it’s not worth speculating here.
- Rogers says Phillips “confronted” police but the police had followed after he drove over the road spikes and driven up to him in the first place. It isn’t entirely misleading, but that is the art of politics and PR to stretch the facts and paint a picture from the distorted points – and so the heroic narrative begins.
- Rogers didn’t mention Phillips had received first aid after being shot, but the later press release does. (Did he? Do any of them?) Did they call an ambulance – when? Never heard that question.
- A press statement says “police returned fire” – and the second car arrived “immediately”. However, the portrait of Roger’s presser was of a lone officer not being able to expect what happened. Problem is the press statement says police knew it was likely Phillips (and that he was also likely armed presumably) as soon as the burglary was reported and the fact the second car was there immediately means it was anything but a lone officer scenario. It was more like an ambush (no questions on this either), with their lights out laying in wait were they? They were well expecting this – to say otherwise as Rogers has implied is simply false.
- Rogers said she knew those roads and it would have been completely black and they couldn’t see anything. But you don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to realise it was a full moon last night.
- Was the officer who was shot conscious and able to speak?
- Was the officer who was shot armed and if so did he discharge his firearm? Because the chances of a cop trying to approach someone they know is Phillips after spiking his tyres in the middle of nowhere without being armed is foolish even if the car behind has a pack of armed cops in it. And yet no journalist asked that question. Lock in the hero narrative by not questioning it.
- How close was the girl to Phillips when he was shot?
- Someone at the presser asked how many bullets were fired in total, but that predictably was batted away with: that’s to be determined. The question should have been how many officers in the second car, and how many of them fired?
- When the children were located did they come out willingly? The reporter asked “what was the nature of the encounter?” and another asked “what was their demeanour?” Rogers said they co-operated after being “safely engaged”. Now what the fuck does that mean? They had guns trained on them and agreed to surrender? The reporters didn’t press.
- Most disturbing of all the disturbing things was something Rogers said that was disturbing not because it was a lie but because it was true. It was during the second presser and relates to her circumscribed response to the question in the above point. Rogers said the Armed Offenders Squad and the STG hit squad were out hunting for the remaining two kids and would go into the night if need be and emphatically said that it had to end! A reporter asked a follow up question that showed he couldn’t quite believe what he heard, surely that was a misstatement – why have armed police out all night hunting a 9 and a 10 year old? He asked if Rogers meant she thought the children were being accompanied by someone who was armed. She fudged it by saying they didn’t know if they were being accompanied or not. She knows they aren’t with anyone – we all know this. The journalists just couldn’t quite compute what this crazed Karen (she does look like the ultimate Karen) was saying, but yes, she was saying it in as many words: the armed police are prepared to kill the children to keep the police safe. Read it again if you have to – that’s what she was in effect saying – in case they do kill them so that they have an arranged justification. And you will see in the cut videos online and the reporting quotes how they clip that bit out so it doesn’t look like she inferred they are prepared to shoot the kids, but that is what she meant. Oh, but that’s sociopathic you may say. No more sociopathic than journalists actively covering it up.
The Police version of events stinks worse than a Urewera longdrop.
Yes , shooting themselves was a masterpiece of misdirection , there was never any doubt that the stable genius who forced his kids into the bush for a few years would surrender peacefully …damn our police are clever …
Why would he surrender when the system was determined to lock him up? As Tim explains, most media just repeat the police propaganda although we do know from the public images of armed police from the start of this event that it was never going to end well for Phillips. It should be self-evident to any intelligent observer that the police who are sworn to uphold the law have become judge, jury and executioner when it suits them with the tame MSM simply repeating what they are told to say. I do not know why Phillips decided that keeping his children with him was a good idea, and it’s highly likely that he had faults, but at least his children are still alive, which is a better result than some of the other disfunctional families in society.
Forced, Forced? Come on these kids are clearly highly intelligent.
“Come on these kids are clearly highly intelligent.”
Clearly not enough to know right from wrong.
Yes as good as you are Law and that is automatically right. Are automatics legal?
I drive a manual , but I presume so …
I drive a manual , but I presume so …
Remember the origins of the NZ police is predicated on ethnically cleansing Maori from their lands and livelihoods to make way for European settlements
Hello….you realise an officer is now nursing a shot to the head and shoulder eh. Any situation where someone produces a firearm I back our Police service %100
100%
Yeah good to shoot them in the back eh Tim Tam.
I blame both parties, the police left him and the kids in the bush for far too long, knowing he was robbing with one kid with him. One policeman going to a dangerous scene was also dumb, no excuses, not good practice. If two policemen arrived at the scene with access to a gun (to protect themselves) maybe they could have reasoned with him to hand himself in, and think of the kids, who he obviously loved or he wouldn’t have hid out for so long. There will be an investigation, but IPCA is the Police investigating themselves. This tragic should not have happened, the family courts in our country are shit I know as one of my nieces had all her children taken off her and given to the useless father. And our police should have sent in another group capable of tracking him and surveilling him earlier. Also, his family should have been more proactive in getting him to turn himself in and a deal should have been struck so he could at least have some access to his kids. Then maybe a policemen would not be lying in hospital seriously injured. This horrid event could have been avoided, it was not handled well, and we don’t seem to learn.
Back up your truck there was more than one officer there because the shot cop was following and road spikes were deployed by another cop
If there was more than one officer initially at the scene, why did Rogers (when questioned by media) justify why there was only one cop at the scene, and she said it was dark at that time of the morning
well the local cop followed him and was directing the other cop where to put the road spikes so there were at least two at the scene of the shooting .Tom was shot by the following cop .Coms info on stuff today .
Ditto , seriously some of the comments here …FM…
To understand where some of the comments in the article are coming from it may pay to Google the details of the authors background with the police and the system.
There are bad eggs in all walks of life but most police I know are in the job to help not kill but they are entitled to protect themselves. When hunting for the 2 remaining children they had no knowledge who was with them and to what extent they would defend them .
Great news they are save and now comes the reintroducion to a normal life which has been denied to them for so long
Trevor your comments make it clear to me that you have never ever really engaged with the police at the level of those of us who have gone on hundreds of protests over 50 plus years.
So a serial protestor does not like the police why am I not surprised.
Utter assumptions… full of holes.
What was Phillips protecting, himself ?
It’s just very odd. The police have been exceptionally patient and cautious for 4 years – ensuring that the children were not brought into an armed confrontation … and then suddenly 2 police cars and 3 officers in the middle of no-where get into a firefight with Phillips and one of his children. It doesn’t add up – I smell a botched operation by local officers who didn’t wait for proper resources and took some risks on their own.
I asked ChatGPT a few questions around the strange nature of what the police have described.
Me: So it sounds like they deliberately setup a scenario in which they knew there was a very high likely hood of armed confrontation? Why approach him in the way they did with just a single officer – that is strange in itself.
Chat:
From the outside, it does look like they created the very scenario they had tried to avoid for four years: a close-quarters confrontation with children nearby.
Do you want me to dig into how the NZ Armed Offenders Squad (AOS) usually operates in rural fugitive cases, so we can compare this to best practice and see if the “single officer” approach really was unusual?
Me: Yes.
Chat: The standard AOS playbook in NZ is “cordon, contain, appeal” (negotiation-first), brought in when risk is high. A single-officer stop of an armed fugitive who often had a child with him is not the usual template for a pre-planned, high-risk intercept.
Here’s a clean side-by-side so you can see the gap.
How AOS is supposed to run (best practice)
Trigger to deploy: Any armed/high-risk job (pre-planned or fast-moving) that exceeds routine policing. AOS is the part-time specialist unit for this; STG is the full-time tier above it.
Core doctrine: Cordon, contain, appeal (negotiate). Most incidents end without shots fired when this is followed.
Risk framework: TENR (Threat–Exposure–Necessity–Response): responses must be timely, proportionate, and shaped to minimise harm to the public (and, here, children).
Police Policy NZ
Typical rural setup (when time allows): layered cordons on likely routes, armed teams in depth, dedicated command, negotiators, medical on standby, and deliberate avoidance of close-quarters surprise—especially if children may be present.
Stopping vehicles: Road spikes are a recognised tactic but timing and placement are critical; premature deployment can create extra danger and has drawn past censure from the IPCA.
What reportedly happened in the Phillips stop
Police responded to a burglary in Piopio around 2:30 am; a quad bike with items attached was observed. Spikes were laid at an intersection on a likely route; the bike hit the spikes and an attending officer was shot at close range. A second unit arrived and returned fire; Phillips died at the scene. A child was with him.
Is the “single-officer” approach unusual?
Against an armed, known-to-shoot fugitive—yes, for anything pre-planned it would be atypical relative to AOS doctrine, which emphasises containment and numbers over a solo engagement. (AOS also gets used on pre-planned high-risk ops precisely to avoid this kind of close-in confrontation.)
The Guardian live reporting indicates the first officer encountered gunfire before additional units/AOS could dominate the scene. If spikes were set “well in advance”, that suggests some planning time existed—time that, under best practice, you’d try to use to position more resources and a negotiation option.
The thing is the police hunted him, put road spikes down to force him to stop, the police new he may be armed and with his daughter, why did they expect was going to happen. Why did the police confront him in that way, what did they expect was going to happen. The police cornered him like a wild animal, what did they expect was going to happen. Phillips was not a dangerous criminal who had killed anyone, he had just gone bush with his kids. Why did the police decide to hunt him down as if he was a murderous criminal. The question is what would the police have done if the police were unarmed, what other way might they have defused the whole situation and presented a peaceful outcome for everyone. Now there are three traumatised children to deal with. The police have a lot to answer for.
Yes Phil absolutely on the dot. Stupidity and incompetence on the part of the police, but they will come out as clean as a whistle.
They were doing their job and could have well both been killed .Everyday we see people moaning about the police but those same people scream like fuck if they are not there at the click of a finger .
Totally. Live capture of deer is an art which was perfected here, Aotearoa nz, using nets and tranquilliser darts. The whole successful deer farming industry was built upon these techniques. Unfair to say they had no option.
Any one who shoots some one else deserves to get shot themselves.
The guy was whatever he was for whatever ever reason and we will never really know why.
If one of my children or siblings did what he did with his children I would not support him.
Those of us that are critical of the police should just shut up because you are only working on rumour and hearsay. I would suggest that you are no better than the nut wings who are antivaxers and assorted tin hatters.
You should be expressing your horror that a parent would expose their children to crime and violence.
You are only working on rumour and hearsay and not much thought, relying on your own prejudices and limited experience Cobbly, so limit it your opinions I suggest and learn about distress in others. Or else you will never understand life, we are all different and all the same in starting off seeing our own viewpoint first – stretch minds to know others’. takes brain muscle used.
All you have is rumour and hearsay, so why don’t you take your own advice? NZ is not supposed to be a police state and they should be catching people they want to talk to, not killing them. I am not defending Phillips actions as it is reported that he has done bad things but people should get their day in court and not a coffin.
He had his day in court and then did really bad things.
Question, rumour and hearsay. When commenting on this situation, where does one get the information to be able to comment? It can only be the media unless it was from someone who was there and directly involved in the shooting. That is why every comment on this site is hearsay or rumour. And of course people will debate whether the media reports are biased or not.
Agree. The fault here is that he was some kind of madman that put his children in extreme danger, thinking of his needs above his children’s welfare for four long years. He was known to be armed and however the situation unfolded he shot a police officer in the head while fleeing a robbery, with his 12 year old daughter. How much choice did his young children have to join him in this crazy kidnapping escapade that lasted 4 years, in addition to the first time he went bush with them, leaving his vehicle on the beach to be claimed by the sea. The children should have been protected from him then, but they were not. He was obviously a highly unstable person who did not have his children’s best interest at heart as he clearly wasn’t mentally well enough to.
Well said Uncle Tom Cobbly.
The real villain is the Family Court….dedicated to destroying dads since its inception.
RIP Tom from Marakopa, you were an inspiration to all of those who try to be good fathers, despite malicious mothers.
To be fair, this guy gave evidence to why family courts tend to rule in mother’s favour.
I agree
Crime, violence and highly sexual stuff is on social media uncle toby as are pedos. If you have had a run in with our Police you will know why some people are talking like they are. No matter what he is still their father and I believe these kids would still love their father, they might not understand why it was necessary for him to keep them in the bush for 4 years. I don’t agree with what he done but I still believe after 4 years on the run why did it come to this. And now a person is dead, a policeman is in hospital badly injured and three kids have no dad. It doesn’t matter what we all think of him he was the children’s father, someone son, brother, uncle, cousin and friend etc people need to show some compassion.
Turn your anger or what ever on the family court as they have caused this situation .How many men of Toms age have taken their own lives because they have been fucked over and the kids they love and work 60 hours a week to home and feed are suddenly taken away for ever .Put your selves in that position and examine your feelings .I personaly know two young men going through the same shit ,one having now not seen his kids for two years because they and the mum were taken into protective care by the police because she pissed off her drug dealer so he was going to kill her .How do you think he feels ,I have noticed he is right on the edge and could easily fall over tomorrow which would end badly .
“Turn your anger or what ever on the family court as they have caused this situation”
that conclusion is pure conjecture on your part Gordon, it may be correct, but equally, Phillips may just have been maladjusted or have a personality defect making him unsuitable guardian, in the real world such people exist. I doubt you were ever privy to any of the interviews and hearing on the matter prior his absconding.
You ought also to consider that there may have been very good reason for him to suspect that a custody hearing would find against him and rule that he was an unsuitable full time guardian. That may have been the best outcome, as sometimes such rulings actually are. Certainly his subsequent behaviour did little to refute that suspicion.
He was clearly maladjusted which was proven after he went bush the first time. How he was able to do it twice is beyond belief. Why is there so little sympathy for the mother? Why does she not have immediate custody of the children when the family court apparently gave it to her. This is so wrong.
It’s not just men that lose access to their kid’s women do to and many whanau are destroyed in the process. And it not just our Family court that sucks the entire justice system is in need of an overhaul, I say this as a victim having experienced a high court trial and then multiple parole hearings.
Ok, you have sympathy for the father, but what about the mother and what she has gone through over the last four years. And the children being separated completely from their mother. And she still hasn’t been able to see them as the police have them in custody so they can interrogate them. And the family also have to fend off a reality tv show. This is all really disgusting. The mother should be allowed her children back. I really feel for the mother who is not white, and apparently working a hard job on a farm down the road. Would she be treated differently if she was white and from a rich farming family? What the hell is going in here, she wasn’t the one who absconded into the bush for four years, she has done nothing wrong. And if she was granted custody of the children why can’t she see them now they have been found.
The details of ‘why’ he felt forced to go bush with his kids has never been reported.
Eyeroll.
…’why’ he chose to go bush…
Nobody forced him to.
Spot on Joseph.
We seem agreed it was a botched ambush.
Some commenters have said they think anyone with a gun against the police deserves whatever they get. I understand the sentiment, but what I’m saying is we cannot rely on the police to tell the truth about any of it. Read some IPCA reports of the straight out lies the police officers tell the investigators, it is both comical and tragic.
I saw today’s presser with Mitchell and the Commissioner. The Commissioner, like most senior police, is so used to lying and getting away with it he makes little effort to avoid being caught out: he said he had seen “a photograph” of a police car with four bullet holes, and then not more than five minutes later he said “I have personally observed” the car with four bullet holes! Which is it? He’s trying to give the impression he saw it when he said he had only seen a photo of it. He’s just a poor liar. How can there be any confidence in these witless goon bags?
Very well said Tim, a convicted fraudster, amongst other things.
I reserved judgement on this event for the first 48 hours while the regime’s media went into overdrive in its efforts to skew the narrative its own way. I now accept that you and TDB got it right from the outset. No disputing that it was an ambush of a man and his child. A botched ambush because one of the assailants was injured. Taking all the circumstances into account, we have a right to conclude that it was a murder.
Assumption is the mother of all fuckups and Geoff, you assume too much.
If you weren’t there you don’t know, so how on earth do you come to a conclusion if not for the media’s reporting?
Well said ‘ Covid is Pa’ , ‘Gordon Walker’ and ‘ Tim Selwyn’. We don’t all roll over and accept the limited media news available to us in NZ. Shocking and terrible outcome which could have been avoided.
Good bye The Daily Blog, ka kite
I’m most interested in how a marital breakdown and custody dispute can be allowed to degenerate to the degree that has set off this tragedy. The ending couldn’t occur without the beginning but I doubt our system will want that scrutinized.
That’s the nub of it. And there’s the rub at the end.
Made me think of Stan Graham in 1941. Started small and then blew up. Needed mediation and some help.
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/stan-graham-killing-spree-on-west-coast
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The startling truth about New Zealand’s fatal police shootings
RNZ https://www.rnz.co.nz › in-depth-special-projects › story
21 Mar 2022 — New Zealand police are fatally shooting people at 11 times the rate of officers in England and Wales. Who are they killing and are they ..
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Licence to kill: Startling truth about NZ’s fatal police shootings
NZ Herald https://www.nzherald.co.nz › New Zealand
20 Mar 2022 — Warning: This article contains details of violence and death By Guyon Espiner & Farah Hancock of RNZ New Zealand police kill at 11 times the …
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Tom Phillips and one of his children were ambushed at night on a lonely country road. Phillips fired on one armed assailant, no doubt with the intention of defending his own life and that of his child. Phillips was then shot dead by his assailants. A badly executed murder.
Yes its tragic that armed robbers are being put to any difficulty whatsoever , can we at least all agree that the real problem here is that the late Mr P could not supply an adequate address for Home detention…
Complete fantasy Geoff.
utterly so ….
It’s not just men that lose access to their kid’s women do to and many whanau are destroyed in the process. And it not just our Family court that sucks the entire justice system is in need of an overhaul, I say this as a victim having experienced a high court trial and then multiple parole hearings.
Saying it’s murder is too far at this point Geoff because the sequence itself is crucial to determine that. I know the cops are bullshit artists, that is certain. It is possible also that the child may have shot at police. It is possible the first cop shot first. It’s possible the first cop went to pick up his RT and Phillips thought it was a Glock and that’s why he fired. Who knows is the kid and about 4 cops who were there. There are a range of scenarios, all of them reflect badly on NZ Police.
Maybe. We don’t know exactly what happened that morning, but we do know that the way the police decided to apprehend Phillips made a fatality or fatalities the most likely outcome. They also knew there was a child present. At best they acted with a cavalier disregard for the consequences.
It is also premature at best to call Phillips “a monster”. On the basis of what we know now he falls into a pattern more commonly observed in the nineteenth century of a basically law-abiding person who comes into conflict with the authorities over a matter in which he is either innocent or only guilty of a minor transgression, becomes an outlaw as a result, and then goes on to commit more serious crimes in order to survive. This is the type of folklore – the likes of Robin Hood and Ben Hall (and even George Wilder and John A Lee) for whom there is a high degree of public sympathy, particularly among the lower classes of society. Phillips attachment to his children may have been excessive and possessive. He decision to take them into hiding may have been a misjudgement. But there should be concern when any person who is not manifestly anti-social ends up outside the law and, once an outlaw almost certain to die at the hands of the state.
This tragedy could have been avoided. It could have been brought to a non-violent conclusion at any time over the past four years if the state had been willing to allow that. As you say “He was always going to be gunned down by police – we all knew how it would end”. That is the tragedy of it. We should have been able to assume that the state would find some other way to deal with the issue.
These are the times of the time cop; and virtual reality, brain computer interface, peak digital surveillance with trough accountability (no pun intended) equals sci-fi losing it’s ‘fiction’ moniker; in these time a mother branded as a meth head could in all likelihood be implanted with a tracking chip / SAR transceiver / Palantir echo device, standard issue these days. If the plod in question were deployed with similar type implants, orders to apprehend or escort the target could easily have been overwritten by instructional A.I. or gaming platform.
I hope the gun lobby ,and the Minister of arm everyone to the max ,now see the stupidity of their selfish crap .
It is never a good outcome when police fatally shoot someone. Punishment is supposed to lie with the courts.
Phillips was not especially dangerous – in the years he was on the run how many did he shoot?
Mediation should have been attempted.
It is never a good outcome when police are put in a position to fatally shoot someone. Punishment is supposed to lie with the courts, yet it was and ruled against Phillips. Phillips chose his own outcome.
If Phillips had chosen his own outcome, he would have slipped away again, as he had so many times before.
He chose to shoot at police. He did not chose to slip away as he had so many times before.
He was spiked apparently, as I’m spiking your argument, letting the air out of it – pfffrtt.
Latest pics, from where a farm fence dump,, farmers have their dumps of our human detritist, not collected , just dump area, how the police saying. This hide away next to a farmers dump.
Bullet shot close range, would head shot, gone, other two shots also, sounds like a 22,point weapon, not as police say report, multipal high powerd weapons found.;
Now, what time in the morning the, police, found the other children, fantastic, now finding them a day later news one produced a weapon threatning, how fuck this cover up going.
What care the tam!s, eh! state, why not whanau, state, care our care for the tama!S, QUESTION CARE FATHER GAVE, why not run, why.