Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, January 7th, 2011 - 116 comments
Back to civilisation after a few days bush. First thing I see in the paper – another kid killed in a police pursuit. 20 in the last 12 months. Makes me so fucken angry. Police policy needs to change. I don’t have the answers. But these people didn’t deserve to die. 20 lives and who knows how many injured is not acceptable. Can’t be beyond us to do better. Can’t be.
Written By: - Date published: 1:18 pm, December 7th, 2010 - 39 comments
19 dead in Police chases in 12 months. You’re more likely to be killed in a police chase than by being shot. Most of the dead were being chased for minor traffic offences. What a waste of life. Collins’ response: harsher sentences. Cause tougher sentences has brought down crime so far, eh? Nats have no ideas. The death toll mounts.
Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, December 5th, 2010 - 29 comments
David Cameron made the commendable decision to create a national happiness index to compliment GDP but there’s a lot of unhappiness in Merry Old England under his rule. To avert fiscal disaster, while allowing bankers and the elite to keep their wealth, Cameron is making savage cuts to public services. And the Police are going old school on the resulting protests.
Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, November 16th, 2010 - 123 comments
In the last year, 17 people have been killed in police chases. Many more injured. They might be criminals but they don’t deserve to die. Yet the Police policy – chase anything that flees – is killing them. The carnage needs to end. The human and financial cost is unbearable. But the Police are determined to continue. The government needs to step in.
Written By: - Date published: 12:20 pm, October 24th, 2010 - 23 comments
No Right Turn asks some questions about the behaviour of the Independent Police Conduct Authority in deeming the release of information about unlawful behaviour by the Police as “not in the public interest”. There are few safeguards on the police – perhaps the main one should explain its decision in this case.
Written By: - Date published: 6:49 am, August 30th, 2010 - 35 comments
Strip searched by the dog-control officer, your home computer hacked by the Pork Board and the Commerce Commission putting 24-hour cameras in your bedroom. It’ll all be fine once the new Search and Surveillance Bill goes through. Oh, and you lose your right to silence. And the need for a warrant is reduced. And…
Written By: - Date published: 2:31 pm, August 11th, 2010 - 13 comments
Finlayson says that paying compo to women abused by cops would “open the floodgates”. In other words, he reckons all the other claims that would come out of the woodwork would cost too much. What’s right is right. No matter the cost. ‘Floodgates’ is just an admission that the hundreds have been harmed. This government doesn’t have the guts to do right by them.
Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, July 31st, 2010 - 14 comments
The Economist has a great article looking at the American propensity to deprive their citizens of their liberty for trivial offenses. We have the same stupid political ratcheting here that causes it. A large part of that is fueled by groups like the Sensible Sentencing Trust. There needs to be a broad agreement across the political spectrum about such hysterical groups before they cause more damage.
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, July 15th, 2010 - 121 comments
In the shadow of recent police shootings we are being presented with the idea of increased police access to firearms as a virtual fait accompli. I’m opposed to the proposal. It won’t make the police any safer, and it will put the public at risk.
Written By: - Date published: 8:17 am, June 26th, 2010 - 20 comments
This week, the Government slammed through the Policing (Involvement in Local Authority Elections) Amendment Bill. It lets Police stand for local elections under the same rules as other public servants. It’s an issue that deserves to be debated. Instead, it was rushed through by this government in yet another shameful act of disregard for transparent government and active democracy.
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, June 22nd, 2010 - 30 comments
The Police should never have been given the power to take DNA off anyone they arrest. It should be handled by an independent group and only on conviction. Letting the Police take DNA off anyone they arrest gives them too much incentive to bend the rules, and that seems to be happening with Police pressuring people they haven’t even arrested into giving over their DNA.
Written By: - Date published: 10:11 am, March 9th, 2010 - 22 comments
When things got too hot Cameron Slater called on Daddy to save him. John Slater rushes in to say to cops shouldn’t be charging his son who has been getting his 15 minutes of fame exploiting sex abuse victims. The Nats think the rules don’t apply to them (cf. Heatley, English, Bennett, Jim McClay…). The law’s for keeping the poor in line, not the rich, they reckon.
Written By: - Date published: 5:41 pm, March 4th, 2010 - 27 comments
Now this is pretty damn funny and just adds to todays absurdities over the waste of money on rugby world cup TV in 2011. Veteran Springbok Tour protester John Minto has found himself at the centre of a new Eden Park storm, with a controversial plan to name a nearby $3 million road after him.
Will the supercity transition authority now want to stop community boards from naming streets?
Written By: - Date published: 12:08 pm, March 4th, 2010 - 38 comments
An ugly side of the Right, one that a lot of people thought was long defeated, has reemerged in recent weeks. Yesterday we had David Garrett’s ‘sterilise the poor because they might become criminals or breed criminals’ and last week we had arguably more disturbing comments from Judith Collins about how she wanted to restore “fear” of the Police.
Written By: - Date published: 2:20 pm, February 23rd, 2010 - 6 comments
Crime is not, as Judith Collins seems to think, evil people doing evil things that can be repressed by ever greater state violence. Deterrence doesn’t work because crime, especially violent crime, is not a rational outcome of weighing costs and benefits. A crime policy that doesn’t reduce crime isn’t really a crime policy, it’s a con.
Written By: - Date published: 8:18 am, February 23rd, 2010 - 29 comments
BLiP puts his distinctive view on why the police have been losing “the respect of the community” with one of his locally famous lists. He attributes it to ‘Crusher’ Collins and wonders why John Key is cluessly fronting PR wanting stronger sentences for disrespecting police.
Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, February 1st, 2010 - 17 comments
It was probably well intentioned – and to be fair we don’t know the full facts yet – but on the face of it putting kids in police cars at a school fair then doing donuts and figure eights around the field looks like pretty poor judgement. On the other hand, I’m just a little …
Written By: - Date published: 1:42 pm, January 21st, 2010 - 19 comments
No Right Turn has a post about the weirdness of the police forces in Britain at present. Elements of our own police force have been acting just as weirdly about ‘terrorism’ over the past years bringing a new era of police stupidity and police doing actions that are subsequently found to be illegal1. Joking about …
Written By: - Date published: 10:16 pm, January 12th, 2010 - 96 comments
UPDATE 14/01 – my Summary of Facts My only charge is still obstructs police – seemingly because I refused to comply with an unlawful request. Note the fact that they haven’t charged me with disorderly behaviour must mean they realise my use of a megaphone was not unlawful. I have no doubt at all that …
Written By: - Date published: 10:20 pm, January 8th, 2010 - 98 comments
As lprent has already posted: I was arrested today for chanting on a megaphone. This is the third time I have been arrested for the same thing. As I mentioned yesterday, there was the broiler conference protests in 2005 which led to a precedent being set in the High Court that it is valid to …
Written By: - Date published: 10:52 pm, January 7th, 2010 - 121 comments
John Darroch called today to inform me that the police were starting to round up and arrest protesters, and that they had three paddywagons ready. I turned up at the protest 10 minutes later and it was pretty much all over. John D, John Minto, and three others had been arrested, and everyone else seemed …
Written By: - Date published: 7:52 am, January 7th, 2010 - 79 comments
Idiot Savant at No Right Turn points out that the police (once again1) are violating the law surrounding protest and dissent. The post is reproduced with permission. Two years ago, we saw a significant victory for the right to protest in New Zealand, with the Supreme Court ruling in Brooker v. Police. The court reinterpreted …
Written By: - Date published: 7:39 am, December 18th, 2009 - 66 comments
Photograph: Christian Charisius/Reuters Earlier in the year there was a lot of media attention on the police tactics at the G20 Summit in London. How depressing to see the same heavy handed approach being deployed in Copenhagen. A reported 100,000 protesters marched in a mostly peaceful event last Saturday, and further marches and events followed …
Written By: - Date published: 5:00 am, August 18th, 2009 - 36 comments
I hadn’t been to a protest in months. After everything I’ve been through, activist stuff tends to make me more than a little angry, which is part of the reason I’ve kept away from the front line for a while. Of course, being as assertive as I am, whenever there is trouble, it seems to …
Written By: - Date published: 9:39 am, August 17th, 2009 - 25 comments
A media release yesterday from the Justice NOW collective! shows how both police and corporate spies are still taking a major interest in the activities of small peaceful protest groups. From the media release: The anti-terror police are still spying on legitimate political protest, and they are still lying to the public about what they …
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, June 17th, 2009 - 13 comments
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Clayton Cosgrove, but he’s sure got ‘Crusher’ Collins running scared on her cuts to police vehicles. Yesterday in Parliament she refused to answer a question as the Minister of Corrections, telling Cosgrove he should take it up with the Minister of Police instead. The Minister of Police, of …
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, May 19th, 2009 - 14 comments
Simon Power talking on Q+A on Sunday showed a abysmal ignorance about how matters operate in his own portfolio. He blamed lawyers and juries for slowing the court system down. My experience in courts says that he is wrong – it is usually the police slowing things down. The lawyers agree here. He is correct …
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, March 10th, 2009 - 5 comments
The Ecologist Film Unit’s second release documents how espionage, news manipulation, legal threats and even violence have become the knee-jerk response of Government and big business to the increasingly vocal concerns of environmental protesters in the UK. Ahead of next month’s Climate Camp at Kingsnorth power station, this exclusive and powerful film exposes the extraordinary …
Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, February 3rd, 2009 - 32 comments
Despite being remarkably quiet throughout a spate of serious police controversies, Police Minister Judith Collins has finally risen to the challenge of leadership over the so-called Boy Racer issue. Collins has suggested crushing the impounded cars of those deemed to be acting like ‘Boy Racers’ in reaction to a Christchurch incident last week when a …
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, January 7th, 2009 - 27 comments
The Economist has an fascinating article “Rioters of the world unite“. It is partially about the demonstrations, protests, and outright riots in Athens and other parts of Greece at the end of last year. It is also partially concerned with a rising trend in new ways to not organize, and still be politically effective. The …
Written By: - Date published: 12:19 am, December 28th, 2008 - 76 comments
The Economist is one of the few main stream media that seem to be flourishing in the days of decline for most media outlets. This is probably because it offers truly interesting comment and opinion. For instance in the current science section, they have “Darwinism:Why we are, as we are, a view on the current …
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