The logic that the Herald is applying to this campaign is the same as the police used over the last two long weekends to try and stop people from speeding, make the law extremely strict and enforce it with no leeway. The problem with this approach is it doesn’t stop those people who flout the law regardless of what the limit is and instead turns those otherwise mild mannered, considerate and normal drivers into criminals. It is like trying to do keyhole surgery with a jackhammer.

The reality is regardless of the limits and the law a few people will continue to disobey the law and cause problems. This is a fact of society and is not something that can be just wiped out by persecuting the masses.

At least one of the Herald’s own commentators gets the stupidity of the campaign:

The Two Drinks Max thing is nothing more than the latest top-of-mind issue that’s the current thing to bang the drum about.

The absurdity of a two-drink maximum is the people who sign up are already responsible enough to know being half-cut and driving doesn’t mix. I give this campaign about another week or three and it’ll be gone only to be replaced by something along the lines of saving a few more whales or whatever.

I won’t be signing up to this campaign or anything like it. Give me something with some cojones and I’ll be there in a flash. Chest thumping does nothing for me along with a lot of people I have spoken to this past week. We don’t want a flash campaign, we want action and lowering the limit won’t solve a bloody thing.

Banning someone from driving a car for five years after a second offence, and permanently for a third, would do the trick for me. I would have preferred a publication to have a go at why so many recidivist drink-drivers are allowed to keep on getting their licences back. Or maybe a concentrated follow up on why public money is spent on helping disqualified drivers get their licences back as reported in the Sunday Star Times. Now that’s what I call a big worry – you get your licence suspended for a good reason, mostly drink driving but allegedly Work and Income will help pay so you get it back. Go figure.

So instead of fudging around the corners and telling everyone to only have two drinks, get behind something that’ll do some good. Hit the heavy drinkers and tell the PC brigade who reckon “the most important thing for drink-driving is treatment” and having people in work can be “therapeutic” to pull their collective heads in. Not too sure how letting someone who’s been convicted of drink driving go back to driving will stop them drinking.

Have a go at that lot and stop targeting folk who already know better.

Last long weekend the Police claimed that their lowering of the tolerance level saved lives, however, with the road toll in NZ being so volatile due to weather factors, and the size of the country being small it was more than likely just a statistic anomaly then any effect the Police had.

This long weekend has just shown that the effect of lowering tolerance does nothing to the limit and instead just trivialises fines and is nothing more than a revenue gathering exercise for police.

In NSW police do the same thing with double demerit points on long weekends. This does not save lives or encourages people to drive safer. Instead people who do take note spend more time looking at their dashboards instead of the road ahead.

A few weeks back former V8 Supercar Champion, Mark Skaife, was on a current affairs show on TV arguing that money should be spent on improving roads, increasing the speed limit, driver education and better cars than super strict enforcement of the driving rules.

I doubt any change will happen though when police and government policy continues to be driven on ticket quotas, revenue raising, and persecution of young drivers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.