Yesterday saw the shooting of two police officers as they attempted an unplanned drug raid in Christchurch, very luckily both officers survived and are expected to make a full recovery. Naturally this has renewed calls for the arming of front-line police officers in New Zealand.

This morning I had a brief discussion with some of my colleagues regarding the Australian police force and how they operate. There are some very clear differences: all front-line police officers carry guns, all front line officers carry Tasers, all front-line officers carry pepper spray.

I still remember the controversy around the introduction of pepper spray around a decade ago in NZ and then the more recent introduction of the Taser (something I have been sceptical of). I certainly do not believe that all front-line officers in NZ should be armed at all times, I can only see a sea of controversy erupting as a result of this: crazy nut-cases taunting police into suicide by cop, cops drawing their weapons in inappropriate circumstances (as seen a number of times with the Taser in both NZ and Australia), and the threat criminals feel by an armed police force and subsequently increasing their own “protection” with even more guns and weapons.

However, the latest shooting follows on from the Napier Siege of last year where an officer was killed and the 2008 killing of an officer working undercover. In all three cases there is a common link, unarmed officers confronting criminals with drugs. This is where the NZ police need to get a lot smarter.

Gone is the day where you can send in two unarmed cops to do a drug bust and the respect for authority will just see criminals roll over. If NZ police are going to do any form of drug raid or operate in areas where people are taking drugs there is a very clear need for them to be armed. Going into a gun fight with pepper spray is never going to work out.

”I believe the overwhelming evidence is that Taser are being used appropriately by NSW Police.” The trial showed numerous examples of the weapon’s usefulness. – Alan Clarke, Assistant Police Commissioner

How does this align with a report obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald that reports such inappropriate uses as:

• Stunning a handcuffed child at a juvenile detention centre.
• Stunning two suicidal people covered in fuel, which can be ignited by a Taser blast.
• The repeated stunning of a compliant man who presented no threat and was surrounded by members of the riot squad.
• There were cases of people being hit by a Taser as many as six times, and others where police appeared to use the weapon to make argumentative but non-threatening people comply with directions.
• In one case a sergeant drew his Taser when he encountered two young men spray painting. He drew the weapon, he later said, because one of the vandals was carrying an extendable paint roller and he was ”unsure what their reaction would be to his presence”. He did not fire the weapon.
• A mother was accidentally hit when police fired at her son in one incident and a police officer was accidentally stunned in another.
• Police also pointed Tasers at groups of people, including protesters inside the Villawood Detention Centre, despite Tasers being acknowledged as an ”inappropriate” weapon for use against crowds.
• Police also appeared habitually to misuse the weapon in its ”drive-stun” mode, in which the Taser is held against the target’s body and causes pain without incapacitation.

Although they are quite controversial Tasers are a much better alternative to lethal weapons in maintaining law and order. However, they are a weapon much like, if not more threatening and damaging than, a baton. If you substituted the word Taser for the word baton in the above examples then it is more than likely that police offers would be in court facing assault charges.

It is the role of the police to keep the peace, but they need to do so in a way that shows respect for people, all people, and not jump to conclusions about people and abuse the power entrusted in them. I doubt many people dispute that policing is a dangerous and sometimes life-threatening job, but there is never a justified reason to abuse power. Describing the misuse as “numerous examples of weapon’s usefulness” is some of the best doublespeak I have seen.

The latest Underbelly series (The Golden Mile) has to date been fantastic and also quite personal as the events happening in it occurred in streets only a little over a kilometre from my house.

One of the more interesting sideshows of this year’s series has been the ongoing attempts by a former police officer stationed at Kings Cross to sue the makers of the series for defamation. Earlier this year the case was thrown out of court because it was declared that someone could not sue for defamation before they have been defamed. However, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday, now that the episodes have aired the former police officer is not pressing on with the defamation law suits.

The most interesting aspect of this whole saga is the character claiming to be defamed is a very minor character in the story and if the defamation proceedings were not being reported it is likely that very few people would care. Instead pursuing the court cases has kept the issue in the media and it would appear that through this the former police officer is indirectly defaming themself.

Living in a new country brings with it a lot of cultural changes, and while the difference in most things between NZ and Australia are mild and minor some of the laws, particularly around roads, are quite absurd from the view of a Kiwi.

Yesterday the NSW Government announced that it was reintroducing mobile speed cameras – you know those white/green/black vans always parked on the sides of the roads in NZ with the dark tinted windows.

What is absurd in NSW though is instead of the anywhere, anytime, no signage speed cameras they have in NZ, the NSW Government is going to give everyone one warning sign before a camera (currently the fixed cameras have 3!), and maintain a public list of locations.

I don’t see the rational for warning people about speed cameras (let alone 3 warnings). If you are serious about bringing the road toll down then stick cameras at the black spots, at the points where people are acting stupidly and fine them, take their cars off them, take their license off them. The only thing fixed speed cameras are is white elephants on the side of the road and those who manage to get fines from them certainly shouldn’t be driving.

By having anytime, anywhere speed cameras it means drivers are more alert to the speed they are travelling at all times not just when a road sign tells you to slow down. And don’t get me started on people calling them revenue gathering tools, they only gather revenue because you are dumb enough to break the law.

Finally, some proof that our justice system works.

With the exception of David Bain no one will ever know the full truth of what happened all those years ago, but todays outcome is the only one that makes sense.

Quite simily the Police botched the original investigation, destroyed evidence and in general did not act in a very professional manner.

That introduces doubt and that is the outcome today, doubt.

Fantastic, well done, members of the jury.

Today’s brutal shooting of a Police Officer doing his job is another sad chapter in the apparent increase in violence involving guns and drugs in NZ.

Kiwiblog puts it in perspective:

“Three officers have been killed in the last nine months. To put that into context, there were only three officers killed from 1991 to 2007.”

The thin blue line just got thinner, and it is unfortunate that unless a large crack down is made on gun, gangs and drugs more innocent people will be killed, and the thin blue line will become thinner, and the number of people entering the force will decline further.

Action needs to be taken now to ensure that the police are able to do their job safely and continue to protect the community.

And that action is not more laws for an underpowered police force to enforce. It is more border security. Stopping the flow of precurser drugs, stopping the flow of weapons and ammo, dealing with low end offenders, the kids with weed at school, stop them at the grass roots level, once they hit the top the only way out is through a final blazen showdown, and we have had enough of it.

Okay I have only just got back from Parachute so I have not had any time to read up on the background of what happened, I only saw the 3news story tonight, and I brought a copy of the Hearld from a service station on the way back to Auckland to find out more.

Firstly the whole issue reminds me of the CSI episode ‘A Bullet Runs Through It’ where a cop is accidentialy killed in crossfire from another officer’s gun.

The reality is this though:

• The Criminal was going to kill people before he was shot, if he was not shot when he was, I’m sure more than one innocent person would have been killed.
• It was an intense scene and unfortuantely things unfold very quickly, sure you can analyse things after the fact and ask lots of what if questions but it can’t change what happened.
• Calling for a Manslaughter charge for the Officer who shot is silly. It is baying for blood, and revenge is not actually the best remedy in these situations, it just creates more pain. A manslaughter charge wouldn’t hold anyway because the Officer did not intend in anyway to harm the innocent man.
• Overuse of drugs and painting the criminal as a victim of his own stupidity just doesn’t wash. He chose to take P, he chose to do the things that he did, he deserves to pay the full cost, and the full penalty for it.
• No matter how tough you make the law, people will still break it, so calling for tougher laws is silly when the drugs are already illegal.

A major hallmark of democracy is the ability to criticize the Government and to take protest action against it. A democracy is driven by the people not by the leaders. That is what makes the spying scandal more outrageous the mere fact that the police, the leaders in society are spying on those people who drive the society. This really grinds me.

The second is the SIG. Set up post 9/11. WAKE ME UP WHEN SEPTEMBER ENDS. It has been 7 years already. We cannot use one terrorist attack killing 3,000 or so people in a country on the otherside of the world to justify our local actions or international wars killing hundreds of thousands for the next century. The madness must stop now.

I have been very busy over the last few weeks and haven’t had much time to blog or do anything much online. But I have been trying to follow the Police Spying Scandal because as the days role on it is getting deeper and much murkier.

Okay for those who haven’t been following the news recently here is a quick update: Last Sunday the Sunday Star Times (Newspaper) revealed that an key political activist was actually a police spy who had infutrated a number of left wing groups. He was reporting to the SIG a group set up after the 9/11 attacks in America to combat terrorism. The Police immediately claimed that the SIG was acting within its boundaries protecting NZ and not spying on activist groups. Since then it has been revealed that the Police through its SIG Counter-Terrorism Spying Taskforce has been spying on a number of political action groups, climate change groups, Greenpeace, the Green Party (yes the political party in parliament), a number of major workers Unions incluing UNITE, and the NDU, and students’ associations especially VUWSA.

Now this is nuts. There is a clear boundary between what is terrorism, what is a terrorist action, what is a threat to national security and the actions of small political lobby groups. I personally believe that if you have done nothing wrong then you should have nothing to hide. But that is not the issue here, the issue is police used a counter terrorism unit to spy on many harmless, democratic and legal political lobby groups.

There are two columns in today’s HoS which add more to this story (and be sure to read the other articles as well there are heaps of them – google is showing over 100 stories written already (http://news.google.co.nz/news?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&tab=wn&nolr=1&hl=en&q=police+spying&btnG=Search+News)

The first is Bill Ralston who calls for an inquiry into the issue:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10549093

Initially John Key, sensibly, said only those who “present a real or credible risk to the safety and security of communities” should be the subject of such investigations. He then passed the issue on to Judith Collins to sort out.

She spoke to Broad and promptly ruled out any need for an inquiry, saying Broad had assured her police were “meeting their responsibilities”. Hiding behind the old “Governments can’t interfere in police operations” line, Collins blithely accepted Broad’s assurance they were not targeting groups but individuals who might commit criminal acts.

Wrong. Emails from their spy show the SIG was targeting the activities of entire unions, including the EPMU, the CTU, the Maritime Union, and the Unite union.

Its spy also infiltrated the Green Party and reported on the plans of Greenpeace, conservation groups, climate change organisations, animal rights groups, and anti-war protesters.

Oh yes, police also used SIG surveillance to protect its own vested interests, targeting anti-Taser protests and investigating a man who is trying to take action against the police after he was pepper-sprayed.

The SIG was set up and received funding after 9/11 to combat the threat of terrorism. None of the groups listed even remotely come near that description. The SIG seems oblivious to the fact that peace groups are, by their very nature, largely peaceful in intent and, ironically, one of its targets, Greenpeace, is the only victim of terrorism in New Zealand.

You have to watch those dangerous unions. In emails to the SIG, its spy breathlessly reports that the NDU and EPMU were having a day of action and locked-out workers would be planning pickets and making banners. Shocking criminal acts that surely imperilled the safety and security of the community.

What has happened is that, in the hysteria after 9/11, the police got a big budget to set up the SIG which then found it had no real terrorism to combat. To protect its budget and its reason for being, the SIG and police then busied themselves with trivia.

Collins has more than enough evidence to show the SIG was acting outside its brief. She should set up a ministerial inquiry, with a QC or someone like the Ombudsman, verify the facts and get serious about cutting costs by axing the unit.

Yes that is right. The police are spying on the only group ever in NZ to have been targeted by terrorism! (and for those with poor knowledge of NZ history it is a reference to the 1986 bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour by the French Secret Service.

The second column is by Matt McCarten head of the Unite Union and a victim of the police spying:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10549080

These groups which were being spied on are incorporated societies carrying out legitimate work on behalf of their members and supporters. They are democratic and transparent. No one has ever accused them of criminal behaviour, let alone terrorism.

…

Gilchrist started collecting information on our union three years ago. At that time we were running our SupersizeMyPay campaign, set up to abolish youth wages and raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour.

Through a combination of employer negotiations, community demonstrations and parliamentary lobbying, we won. Tens of thousands of workers have since had their wages lifted by more than $3 an hour, in large part because of this campaign, and youth wages were scrapped.

Are our spies seriously suggesting minimum wage workers and school kids working in fast-food restaurants were part of a budding al Qaeda network?

The actions of this spy unit go to the heart of our democracy. Frankly, their actions are worse than the so-called danger they claim to want to protect us from. What could be more of a threat to our society than a secret police force paying undercover “Walter Mitty-type” informants to infiltrate and secretly report on civil and political groups? Isn’t that what totalitarian governments do?

…

A meat worker who ran as a communist candidate in the last election was detained at Auckland Airport for four hours after returning from Australia. She was subjected to a humiliating strip search. Nothing was found. But what was disturbing is the Customs officers spent the whole time grilling her on her political activity and were well aware of her history.

The only way you can explain this is that a file has been compiled on her and given to other state agencies. If this doesn’t worry New Zealanders, we’re in real trouble.

…

The new Prime Minister, John Key, should agree to the request by the targeted unions for a full inquiry. If the unit has been spying on organisations carrying out lawful work, it should be disbanded and the Police Commissioner sacked.

In future, when our political leaders tell us we need greater police power to fight terrorism, just be aware it has little to do with keeping us safe and everything to do with keeping us under control.

And so we end up back with a scene from V For Vendetta.

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

Now there is absolutely no denying that the storm that has hit us during the last two days has been particularly nasty, however, one thing that is getting to me is the way the media blow it up, and the way in which the general public then go into panic mode. I had a friend telling me that the motorway was closed and they shouldn’t be driving because there are slips and stuff. The irony here is that the motorway was never closed and the person couldn’t explain to me how you could get a slip in the middle of central Auckland where there are no hills to slip.

Coming back to the one in 10 year storm idea. Compare these two police media release pages. The first is for yesterday. The second is for July 10 2007. One year ago. Where we got hit by a very similar storm which took out power up here for two days. 48 hours. Not 3. And that was a year ago, not 10.

26 July 2008:

10 July 2007: