West Auckland Shooting

Written By: - Date published: 3:10 pm, June 19th, 2020 - 171 comments
Categories: class war, crime, police, Politics - Tags: , ,

A policeman has died and another has been seriously wounded in an incident in the suburb of Massey, West Auckland. It appears it was a routine traffic stop and there was no reason for the Police personnel involved to think it would end any differently to the hundreds of these interactions that happen every day.

It’s the first killing of a police officer in over a decade.

My social media feeds have been peppered with comments suggesting that if the officers had been armed there would have been a different outcome for them.

That’s bullshit.

Clearly, the two cops were caught by surprise. Even if they’d had guns on their person, one, at least, would still have been shot.

A gun is not a defensive weapon. It cannot magically stop a bullet that has been fired.

I have a terrible feeling this tragedy is going to be politicised by the right, particularly by the ‘All Lives Matter’ racists.

Don’t be fooled.

The Police do need access to guns, but they do not need to be routinely armed.

171 comments on “West Auckland Shooting ”

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  1. observer 1
    19 June 2020 at 3:17 pm

    Screw the "social media feeds". Screw the instant reckons, all based on preconceived positions, none on facts.

    And this post isn't helping.

    • OnceWasTim 1.1
      19 June 2020 at 3:40 pm

      +1 !

      Fuck me. While I was seeking out the Voice of Reason, I had to check whether instead of TS, I'd come to ZB.

      You do know you're gorgeous already dontcha TRP?

    • RedLogix 1.2
      19 June 2020 at 4:02 pm

      +1

      As for the claim that "All Lives Matter" is racist, personally I find that the single most offensive and appallingly vile thing I have ever read at TS. By quite a long margin. Ever.

      For a start it's a disgusting repudiation of the Universal Declaration of Human rights.

      If anyone was to say "Brown Lives Matter" this would be fine. If anyone was to say "Yellow Lives Matter" … well you can see where this is going. But apparently saying "All Lives Matter" is racist. This is the bullshit position that identity politics has taken the far left to.

      And this is before we even get to the provable fact that the entire BLM movement (which is where this zombie slogan originated) is based on a categorical lie. The idea that the current day US police is full of degenerate white cops, murdering large numbers of helpless black people motivated by racial animosity is demonstrably wrong.

      It's time to stop feeding these stupid divisions based on skin colour and culture. They will take us to one destination only … and that will be hell.

      • te reo putake 1.2.1
        19 June 2020 at 4:10 pm

        "As for the claim that "All Lives Matter" is racist, personally I find that the single most offensive and appallingly vile thing I have ever read at TS."

        I think you mean "misread", RL.

        Read the actual comment again. It doesn't say what you claim it does.

        • RedLogix 1.2.1.1
          19 June 2020 at 4:13 pm

          I have a terrible feeling this tragedy is going to be politicised by the right, particularly by the ‘All Lives Matter’ racists.

          Maybe I have misread this. Perhaps you could clarify.

          • te reo putake 1.2.1.1.1
            19 June 2020 at 4:31 pm

            Sure, RL. I was singling out the racists who, in recent weeks, have rallied behind the “All Lives Matter” banner, in political organised opposition to the community revulsion at the death of George Floyd.

            It’s also been used by some folk who are genuinely confused about the issues involved, and it’s not them I was referring to. That’s just well meaning ignorance, which is not widespread, I hope.

            I trust we all understand that all lives do matter, but clearly, some matter less than others in ‘murica. Hence the protests, hence the calls for radical change in policing.

            • RedLogix 1.2.1.1.1.1
              19 June 2020 at 4:50 pm

              I trust we all understand that all lives do matter, but clearly, some matter less than others in ‘murica.

              OK I can accept the first proposition there in good faith. But the second part … which is where all the heat lies in this debate rests on a flimsy basis.

              Black disadvantage in the USA is real and measureable. But it's no longer valid to attribute all of the remaining gap with other ethnic groups entirely down to skin colour and racism. Again this is the fatal flaw of identity politics, it sees a problem and has only one tool to attack it with … when the actual causes of disadvantage are complex and multi-dimensional.

            • common sense 1.2.1.1.1.2
              19 June 2020 at 5:04 pm

              Te reo putake. Perhaps some people dont see all lives matter in the same context. Perhaps some people see , understand and appreciate the black lives movement and support the ideal that black lives have suffered and do suffer for reasons that are not right.

              Perhaps those that cling to all lives matter wish for a peaceful planet where no race is suppressed . Perhaps we say i hear your voice and agree with your statements but let us all stand together because to see you suffer causes me to suffer . If we unite we are strong and will be heard but i assure you people from all races are suffering, and all need a voice.

              All lives matter is a voice that respects all life to some, i cant see how all lives matter can be mistaken for racisim in context to respect for all life

              • te reo putake …
                19 June 2020 at 5:13 pm

                Hi, common sense and thank you for the empathy you express.

                The phrase "All Lives Matter" has been politicised by racist groups in America (and here). It's used to muddy the waters and minimise the need for systemic change in the States (and here).

                It's unfortunate that it is being misused, but that's the fact of the matter.

                Right here, right now, people using the phrase are either naive to the wider context or are being deliberately racist and provocative. It's the latter that are the immediate problem and it is them that I singled out in the post.

                • common sense …
                  19 June 2020 at 5:29 pm

                  Fair play. I hear what your saying but know that some that use the term all lives matter have your back .

                  In the context that you use your argument is sound. I wish that all could see as clearly. These are testing times for the species. strength lies in unity.

                  The saddest part for me is to see how certain selfish people have taken the oppertunity to hijack a noble movement , This is why there is rejection and racisim in the direction of blm. while those with intellect and kind hearts see this clearly it is tainting the perception of those that dont.. soundbites and misinformation are found guilty for this argument..when innocent people are harmed by a small few it muddys the perception of the movement

          • Gabby 1.2.1.1.2
            19 June 2020 at 7:01 pm

            It's more about the racist asshats saying it than the words themselves dewnchnew.

      • Imodium 1.2.2
        19 June 2020 at 4:12 pm

        Well said Red . How can "All Lives Matter" be termed as racist.

        • Macro 1.2.2.1
          19 June 2020 at 4:36 pm

          ProtestsF%20Anim%20All%20Lives%20Matter%201

          • observer 1.2.2.1.1
            19 June 2020 at 4:50 pm

            +1.

            It isn't difficult to understand.

          • RedLogix 1.2.2.1.2
            19 June 2020 at 5:10 pm

            The above gif makes a bunch of false comparisons. For example when Boston was bombed, there was no claim from Bostonian's that somehow their city was unfairly targeted by terrorists 'systemically prejudiced' against their city. And that on this basis Bostonian's had the right to protest and riot in other cities, and demand radical changes.

          • Anne 1.2.2.1.3
            19 June 2020 at 5:54 pm

            Great response. Thank-you Macro.

      • Draco T Bastard 1.2.3
        19 June 2020 at 4:14 pm

        The idea that the current day US police is full of degenerate white cops, murdering large numbers of helpless black people motivated by racial animosity is demonstrably wrong.

        Is it?

        People who are American Indian and Alaska Native, black or Latino are more likely to be killed by police than people who are white.

        Men of color have especially high lifetime risks of being killed by police. About 1 in 1,000 black men and boys are likely are killed by police. For American Indian and Alaska Native men and boys, the lifetime risk of being killed by police is about 1 in 2,000.

        • RedLogix 1.2.3.1
          19 June 2020 at 4:26 pm

          I've done this debate a week back. Police do not interact with civilians at random. This makes using population based comparisons completely wrong.

          People almost only come into serious conflict with the police in the course of committing violent crime. For example who is more likely to be shot by the NZ Police right now, a retired Catholic nun or the person who just killed this Constable in West Auckland?

          When you do the analysis based on who commits the violent crimes in the USA, you get a completely different view to the one that BLM wants you to believe. The left should have been a great deal more cautious about accepting what they were saying right from the outset.

          • The Al1en 1.2.3.1.1
            19 June 2020 at 4:48 pm

            People almost only come into serious conflict with the police in the course of committing violent crime.

            'Almost only' are the weasel your way out of jail words in this sentence.

            Numerous stories told and accounts given, before and after BLM became a thing, would say that's just not an accurate summary of recent and historically tragic events.

            • RedLogix 1.2.3.1.1.1
              19 June 2020 at 4:56 pm

              Yes. In a small fraction of police involved deaths the victim turns out to be unarmed. In an even smaller fraction the whole thing turns out to be a complete fuck up and mistake. Like Justine Damond's stupid killing for example.

              But these are not the numbers BLM are using … they base their claim on the total number of black people killed by police as compared to the fraction of black people in the population … and then leap to a bullshit conclusion the identitarian left was only too happy to swallow whole.

              • The Al1en …
                19 June 2020 at 5:06 pm

                You said "come into serious conflict with the police". That doesn't have to end in a death to massage your contentions into your figures.

                You can talk about false arrests and convictions from police 'evidence'.

                You can look at the number of assaults and beatings served on black people at traffic stops, or on street corners, or anywhere when it's the wrong place at the wrong time, where no one is committing violent crime.

                I totally reject your point in it’s entirety.

                • RedLogix …
                  19 June 2020 at 5:13 pm

                  You can reject all you like but it won't change the data; bad outcomes from police interactions are strongly correlated with crime rates. Across all communities. Black, Latino or White.

                  • The Al1en …
                    19 June 2020 at 5:24 pm

                    So we've shifted from "come into serious conflict with the police in the course of committing violent crime" to "bad outcomes from police interactions are strongly correlated with crime rates"

                    I haven't got the patience to find out how much more bull shit you'll spread on this sad subject, but I'll attempt to tune in next week to see where you've moved the goalposts to. 😆

                    • RedLogix …
                      19 June 2020 at 7:40 pm

                      The job of the police is to deal with criminals. The more criminality in a community the more likely police are going to be interacting with them, the higher the chance of something going wrong.

                      This is the simple, undeniable logic the identitarian left persists in making itself look foolish over by insisting that population is the only valid baseline, and to cover up for the fact that the black community in the USA commits violent crimes at a rate way higher than any other group.

                      In reality all the studies admit that real life is a lot more complex than any simplistic slogan or single argument can explain. Certainly it's not obvious that racism is the sole and only cause of disparities, nor are just crime rates. There are multiple factors that are involved.

                      But one of the most outstanding is really very simple, 95% of officer involved shootings are in response to a perpetrator attacking them with a firearm. There you have it, the simplest and most direct way to reduce your risk of being killed by a cop is not to shoot at him or her.

                  • McFlock …
                    19 June 2020 at 6:24 pm

                    Bad outcomes from a biased system routinely correlate with data gathered by the same biased system. And every single person shot in the back or slowly murdered over 8.5 minutes is a single event, not part of a wider racist system.

                    🙄

              • Draco T Bastard …
                19 June 2020 at 6:19 pm

                Wiki:

                Research also indicates that there is extensive racial and ethnic discrimination by police and the judicial system. A substantial academic literature has compared police searches (showing that contraband is found at higher rates in whites who are stopped), bail decisions (showing that whites with the same bail decision as blacks commit more pre-trial violations), and sentencing (showing that blacks are more harshly sentenced by juries and judges than whites when the underlying facts and circumstances of the cases are similar), providing valid causal inferences of racial discrimination. Studies have documented patterns of racial discrimination, as well as patterns of police brutality and disregard for the constitutional rights of African-Americans, by police departments in various American cities, including Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.

                Seems like every time I try to verify the facts state that the BLM movement are correct.

                Which makes you wrong.

              • mpledger …
                20 June 2020 at 9:52 am

                George Floyd was called to polices attention because they thought he was trying to pass a forged $20 note but it turned out it wasn't forged. Rayshard Brooks who fell asleep in the Wendy's drive through was shot in the back. Eric Garner was choked to death after selling cigarettes on the sidewalk.

                The point being that how did these low level alleged crimes turn into death sentences?

                The police have a strategy to over-charge in order to blackmail people into pleading guilty to lesser crimes and that's why a lot of Black people have no trust in their interactions with police.

                And if you look at the twitter #crimingwhilewhite you can see a very different approach to crimes of another ethnicity.

                • RedLogix …
                  20 June 2020 at 11:19 am

                  Rayshard Brooks who fell asleep in the Wendy's drive through was shot in the back. Eric Garner was choked to death after selling cigarettes on the sidewalk.

                  Now look at this video of the death of Tony Timpa.

                  Or the insane death of Daniel Shaver.

                  In no sense do these deaths somehow 'cancel out' that of Brooks or Garner, that would be entirely the wrong conclusion. But the point is that the media has ensured you are made very aware when police unjustifiably kill a black man, but rarely when they kill white men in similar bad circumstances.

                  As a result everyone is programmed to feel there is an epidemic of cracker white cops hunting down black men for sport. And given the sheer size of the USA these tragic incidents at the margins will occur every 2 -3 weeks. Rayshard Brooks will not be the last, there will almost certainly be another similar case within the next month. Yet given there are about 600,000 sworn police officers in the USA, if each one of them has an average of just one interaction with the public per day, then one unjustified black death every 2 weeks is a rate around 1 wrong death in 10 million encounters. We are dealing with rare events right out at the extremes of bell curve. (And out there, small variations in the mean, have huge impacts on the extremes.)

                  In the meantime 5 – 6,000 black men where gunned down by other black men every year for the past decade (that was about 100 just this past week and another 100 or so next week) and no-one gives a shit.

                  • solkta …
                    20 June 2020 at 11:49 am

                    In the meantime 5 – 6,000 black men where gunned down by other black men every year for the past decade

                    Yes that's right, it should be OK for police to shoot black men because some black men do that too.

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 11:55 am

                      Really? How did you reach that truly weird conclusion?

                    • solkta …
                      20 June 2020 at 11:59 am

                      You brought it up. The topic of discussion is violence by an agency of the state. What other relevance could this have?

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 12:20 pm

                      Relevant to the topic, and what is animating it at the moment, is the claim by the BLM movement that racist white cops are murdering black people in large numbers. A claim so powerful that rioters have used it to justify setting buildings on fire and beating up people they don't like.

                      Yet even the most cursory examination shows this claim is both highly selective, in that ignores other much larger causes of unjustified black death, and it uses a faulty basis for comparison.

                      Here is perhaps one very simple explanation that everyone overlooks. The white population is on average older than the black population and violent crime is almost exclusively committed by young men between the ages of 15 and 35.

                      If this inevitably shifts the perceptions of working police, even just slightly on average, it will have a much larger impact on the extreme events that occur relatively rarely … but gain all the media attention.

                      Even if I allow, for the sake of argument, BLM's claim that black men are 2 -3 times more likely to be killed by police than white men, it doesn't follow this means that police are somehow grossly racist and biased against blacks on average.

                      Here is a simple graphic illustrating this idea. For very rare events like unjustified police shootings this effect is much more pronounced.

                    • solkta …
                      20 June 2020 at 12:40 pm

                      in that ignores other much larger causes of unjustified black death,

                      So should we be considering road deaths as well? No obviously not because that is not relevant to the actions of police officers.

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 1:01 pm

                      So should we be considering road deaths as well?

                      Well that would certainly be worth doing if it could be shown there was 5 -6,000 pa of black people being killed by cracker white racists running them down or driving them off the road. If it's important to you this publication looks like it has some relevant data.

                      But if Black Lives really did Matter, why the selective focus on the relatively tiny number of black people (less than 40 per annum) unjustifiably killed by police, when there are much larger groups of black people also being killed in equally unjust circumstances?

                      The only reason I can think of is that one statistic is politically useful because it can be used to hijack the far left's indentitarian 'racist' agenda … while the other is useless for this purpose.

                    • The Al1en …
                      20 June 2020 at 1:05 pm

                      if Black Lives really did Matter, why the selective focus on the relatively tiny number of black people (less than 40 per annum) unjustifiably killed by police, when there are much larger groups of black people also being killed in equally unjust circumstances?

                      Because these people are paid to protect and serve, regular citizens aren't, and once again you're focusing on death tolls, which does a great disservice to all those who have been beaten, assaulted, wrongly convicted on dodgy evidence etc. etc. by police in the course of going about their daily lives.

          • Tiger Mountain 1.2.3.1.2
            19 June 2020 at 5:05 pm

            There is little that is random about NZ police behaviour. They profile and engage on that basis for vehicle pullovers. I have seen some “random” checkpoints too where white people in late model cars get waved through and brown folks get closely checked. The cops themselves admit they profile and discriminate.

            • Adrian 1.2.3.1.2.1
              20 June 2020 at 1:07 pm

              Are they ? Or are they responding to a report of a description of people acting in a suspicious manner or an actual crime. I'm sure if you reported being clipped around the ear by an angry old white man they wouldn't be stopping people who did not fit that description.

              BTW, did you notice the news report of a neighbour seeing a police officer hiding behind his fence immediately after the shooting reportedly holding a firearm, theres a pretty good chance the two unfortunate cops were armed. Fuck lot of good that did them.

          • solkta 1.2.3.1.3
            19 June 2020 at 8:22 pm

            violent crime like driving while black.

            • The Al1en 1.2.3.1.3.1
              19 June 2020 at 8:52 pm

              You're wasting your time with that one.

              Dinosaur thinking from a time long past, unable to see the very thing the people are protesting about, hiding in plain sight behind statistics and reckons.

              Fortunately it's all public and we can make up our own minds. Zero.

              • RedLogix …
                19 June 2020 at 9:01 pm

                95% of officer involved shootings are in response to a perpetrator attacking them with a firearm. There you have it, the simplest and most direct way to reduce your risk of being killed by a cop is not to shoot at him or her.

                If that is 'hiding behind statistics' then go fuck yourself.

                • The Al1en …
                  20 June 2020 at 9:46 am

                  If that is 'hiding behind statistics' then go fuck yourself.

                  Every black person whose suffered abuse, violence, or worse, at the hands of racist police just for being black and in range of corrupt officers, would probably (and justifiably) say you're just a know nothing prick hiding behind numbers and very much part of the problem.

                  • RedLogix …
                    20 June 2020 at 11:24 am

                    And as long as you continue to make excuses for people who point guns at the police … as happened in West Auckland yesterday.

                    Oh well.

                    • The Al1en …
                      20 June 2020 at 12:30 pm

                      Okay, quote anywhere I've done anything like that anytime., especially in this exchange. Most people here would be forced to back up what appears to be a giant diverting porkie, yet I'll just ask you to substantiate, knowing full well you can't.

                      The thing is, the countless stories of how black people are treated poorly by the police in what should be relatively hassle free situations, which it usually is for whites, is your starter for ten on the road to enlightenment.
                      That you won’t even acknowledge that, well, you’re well on the way to either St maga hood, or more probably, maga tyrdom.

                    • solkta …
                      20 June 2020 at 12:46 pm

                      Most people here would be forced to back up what appears to be a giant diverting porkie,

                      There is that one and the one above that we, none of us, "no-one", "gives a shit" about black on black homicide.

                    • The Al1en …
                      20 June 2020 at 1:01 pm

                      Shake of the head time.

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 1:08 pm

                      Okay, quote anywhere I've done anything like that anytime., especially in this exchange.

                      Directly when you replied to my statement above that the simplest way for black people not to get shot by police is to stop pointing guns at them, fleeing and resisting arrest. That would immediately reduce the deaths everyone is so anxious about by at least 80%.

                      Then in your direct response you justified this with the line "Every black person whose suffered abuse, violence, or worse, at the hands of racist police"

                      That looks like a big fat apologist's excuse to me.

                    • The Al1en …
                      20 June 2020 at 1:19 pm

                      No, that's not anything like making excuses for black people (and people in general) who point guns at the police.

                      I finished that sentence with "just for being black and in range of corrupt officers"

                      Which is consistent with previous and subsequent comments, such as

                      "You can talk about false arrests and convictions from police 'evidence'.

                      You can look at the number of assaults and beatings served on black people at traffic stops, or on street corners, or anywhere when it's the wrong place at the wrong time, where no one is committing violent crime."

                      And

                      "once again you're focusing on death tolls, which does a great disservice to all those who have been beaten, assaulted, wrongly convicted on dodgy evidence etc. etc. by police in the course of going about their daily lives."

                      And

                      "countless stories of how black people are treated poorly by the police in what should be relatively hassle free situations, which it usually is for whites"

                      I'm actually glad you've outed yourself on The Standard. I'm sure a lot of peoples eyes have been opened by you continued anti BLM stance.

                    • Drowsy M. Kram …
                      20 June 2020 at 1:46 pm

                      Despite RedLogix’s many comments on this topic, in my heart I still hope he believes that "Black Lives Matter" is a just cause, even if he can't bring himself to state that here.

                      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-20/tawanda-jones-west-wednesdays-vigils-black-lives-matter/12359402

                    • The Al1en …
                      20 June 2020 at 1:56 pm

                      in my heart I still hope he believes that "Black Lives Matter" is a just cause, even if he can't bring himself to state that here.

                      I think the answer is already out there

                      if Black Lives really did Matter, why the selective focus on the relatively tiny number of black people (less than 40 per annum) unjustifiably killed by police, when there are much larger groups of black people also being killed in equally unjust circumstances?

                      The only reason I can think of is that one statistic is politically useful because it can be used to hijack the far left's indentitarian 'racist' agenda

                    • Drowsy M. Kram …
                      20 June 2020 at 2:24 pm

                      You're probably right, but hope is never a waste of time, IMHO.

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 2:59 pm

                      I’m actually glad you’ve outed yourself on The Standard. I’m sure a lot of peoples eyes have been opened by you continued anti BLM stance.

                      Oh I though that was quite clear. While of course black lives matter, just as all lives do, I am quite convinced the radical marxist political movement called BLM is a dangerous fraud that exploits the left's weakness for anything that looks like an identity cause.

                      The whole thing is a bogus moral panic. The deaths of relative handful of black people, however tragic and wrong each individual case is, have not justified the tearing apart of a nation in mass protests, rioting, looting and arsons. So no I do not think BLM is a just cause.

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 3:14 pm

                      There is that one and the one above that we, none of us, "no-one", "gives a shit" about black on black homicide.

                      Well I cannot directly know what is inside your head; but I can make deductions on how you act. And given that all of your attention so far has been on police killings (of which at least 90% are fully justified), and none of it on black on black deaths numbering an order of magnitude greater, and very few of which are justified … then yes I safely conclude you don't give a shit about black lives really.

                      It's all a political game to you.

                    • solkta …
                      20 June 2020 at 3:36 pm

                      then yes I safely conclude you don't give a shit about black lives really.

                      It's all a political game to you.

                      And there you go again. JUST FUCK OFF!

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 3:49 pm

                      I'm tempted to laugh at you; but that would be a mistake.

                    • The Al1en …
                      20 June 2020 at 3:51 pm

                      The recent deaths are a flash point in the here and now, but you still keep ignoring the protests aren't just about them, they're also about historic abuses of power towards black people, who weren't violent, nor pointing weapons at the police.

                      I'm not even going to get into why you link the looting and arson with the well meaning and righteous BLM movement to make a very 'privileged' point, and I'll leave "bogus moral panic" and "the radical marxist political movement called BLM is a dangerous fraud" to those willing to knowledge supremist you out of town.

                      I will take a deserved apology for the lie you told about me up thread, though.

                      you continue to make excuses for people who point guns at the police

                    • The Al1en …
                      20 June 2020 at 3:53 pm

                      I'm tempted to laugh at you; but that would be a mistake.

                      Not that we could tell while you’re wearing your pointy pillow case hat.

                    • solkta …
                      20 June 2020 at 4:09 pm

                      perhaps he could cut a smiley face in it.

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 4:30 pm

                      Not that we could tell while you’re wearing your pointy pillow case hat.

                      A very large part of my arguments on this thread are sourced from US black voices who have spoken very clearly around the BLM movement and their deep skepticism of it's arguments and motives.

                      I've made my case clearly, with logic and basic numeric analysis. It isn't perfect, but it has been made in good faith, and at no point have I resorted to attacking you personally.

                      Now you lay a KKK trip on me, and then demand an apology from me? Have you no self-awareness at all?

                      As for the rest of your comment, yes there is ethnic disadvantage in the USA (as indeed everywhere there are for ethnic minorities in any country.) But the argument that this disadvantage is somehow solely due to both historic abuses and modern 'systemic' racism does not follow. Here is a simple experiment showing why.

                      Go and look at two different immigrant groups in the USA, from Jamaica and Nigeria. Both have skin colours and appearance indistinguishable from native black Americans, yet their social outcomes by every measure are completely different. By many measures they outperform whites. If skin colour was the determining factor this should be impossible.

                      The substantive differences between these immigrant black communities and the native ones are of course cultural.

                    • The Al1en …
                      20 June 2020 at 4:34 pm

                      perhaps he could cut a smiley face in it.

                      Doesn't look like it 😆

                    • The Al1en …
                      20 June 2020 at 4:46 pm

                      at no point have I resorted to attacking you personally

                      Apart from

                      go fuck yourself

                      you continue to make excuses for people who point guns at the police

                      looks like a big fat apologist's excuse to me

                      As for

                      you lay a KKK trip on me, and then demand an apology from me? Have you no self-awareness at all?

                      You totally misrepresented my posts and claimed I've done something I clearly haven't. That's dishonest debate right there, and you should apologise for doing it.

                      All I've done is read your comments on BLM and reached a conclusion based on the company those musings are keeping. I can see you're using the BLM protests, and the supportive reactions of many here to them, to attack the left, but as a tool for venting, police violence and subjugation of black people must be one of the lowest in the tool chest to reach for. I expect better from long time members here.

                    • solkta …
                      20 June 2020 at 4:49 pm

                      more likely to cut an arsehole.

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 4:53 pm

                      The core of the BLM message, the one that has gained all the public traction is of course the question of police shootings of blacks, disproportionate to their population. Yet the reality is that the large majority of them, at least 80 – 90% are fully justified in the circumstances, the victim has either resisted arrest, pulled a gun or similarly invited lethal retaliation.

                      When I pointed this out, you directly came back with a line about historic abuse and racism. Which can reasonably be interpreted as an apologist excuse for people who attack the police.

                      If you really meant something else, now would be a good moment to clarify.

                    • solkta …
                      20 June 2020 at 4:58 pm

                      About

                      #BlackLivesMatter was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. By combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, we are winning immediate improvements in our lives.

                      https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/

                    • The Al1en …
                      20 June 2020 at 5:00 pm

                      This is the quote of my first interaction on this topic at 1.2.3.1.1 and forms the basis of my interaction since.

                      People almost only come into serious conflict with the police in the course of committing violent crime.

                      'Almost only' are the weasel your way out of jail words in this sentence.

                      Numerous stories told and accounts given, before and after BLM became a thing, would say that's just not an accurate summary of recent and historically tragic events.

                      I'm totally at peace with every reply I've made following.

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 5:36 pm

                      There is no question that policing in the USA is a fraught business. I've covered this ground several times in the past few weeks.

                      Over 18,000 different agencies, often underfunded, with senior leadership selected on a political basis, the actual workers not well paid and facing very real daily risks, an unhealthy siege mentality and a union that tends to uncritically support all cops regardless of whether it's justified or not … and not to mention a highly armed population that's very prone to using them …. the lot of your average US cop is pretty dire.

                      There is no question there are, like any other profession, cops who should not be in the job, and the mechanisms for weeding them out are not working. The trend toward excessively militarised policing, understandable in the wake of various mass shootings, is also deplorable.

                      There is every reason for everyone in the USA to demand better from their police, regardless of your ethnicity.

                      At the same time there are lot of people who need to stop and ask themselves exactly how did it all come to this? The USA has not been able to deal with it's endemic gross economic inequality … which I strongly contend is the real reason for the anguish and anger felt widely across the USA at present. It impacts all working Americans, yet BLM are directly fracturing that potential economic solidarity with a racist agenda that divides communities and leaves the ultimately more vulnerable, not less.

                    • McFlock …
                      20 June 2020 at 6:08 pm

                      What I can't compute is how you are so convinced that "identity politics" undermines classist left-wing politics that you'll cut&paste from right wing propaganda sites (edit: quillette, the last time we were arguing about blm) to undermine the BLM movement.

                      Even if your numbers were accurate and "resisting arrest" wasn't a post-shooting justification from the remaining survivors of the incident, surely the calls to defund and replace the currently broken US law enforcement system are a good thing?

                      Why are you so easily melted by the idea of "identity politics" that you wouldn't just shut the fuck up and think "well, their reasoning is flawed, but the system is so fucked up they might as well try something different"?

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 7:14 pm

                      What I can't compute is how you are so convinced that "identity politics" undermines classist left-wing politics

                      The broad and legitimate role of the left is to speak and advocate for the weak, the dispossessed and disadvantaged in life. In this I point to the now classic Universal Declaration of Human Rights accord signed in Paris 1948 as a core set of principles I endorse and uphold.

                      Seriously I suggest you go and have a quick read, they cover the ground well. And arguably the first in both place and importance says:

                      Article 1.
                      All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

                      I could write at length on this, but in essence identity politics stands in direct contradiction to this principle.

                      surely the calls to defund and replace the currently broken US law enforcement system are a good thing?

                      We've discussed this before. By 'defunding' it's clear the more radical pro-BLM voices mean 'abolish'. There are plenty of examples to point to. It's a crazy idea. There are some doctors who kill people too, but does any sane person suggest we abolish the entire modern medical system to fix this problem?

                      It's not just crazy, but political suicide, an idea that if the Democrats are stupid enough to embrace, will ensure Trump governs forever.

                      but the system is so fucked up they might as well try something different"?

                      Actually it's not all that 'fucked up'. By all measures racial and sexual tolerance is better than it ever has been, yet paradoxically at the same time we believe it is worse than ever. And specifically for the black community real progress is obscured by only looking at the gaps with other ethnicities.

                      For instance since 2000 the incarceration rate for young black teenagers has dropped 72%. That's more than two halvings in two decades, yet it's a number the media will never tell you. By many other measures, in crime, education and health the story for black Americans in recent decades is remarkably good, and continues to improve. The left should be celebrating this; taking what we know works and improving on it.

                      But instead the radicals demand we must burn the whole system down. Well we've tried that at least a dozen times from the French Revolution onward … and the term "The Great Horror" was not coined for laughs.

                    • McFlock …
                      20 June 2020 at 8:11 pm

                      If article 1 reflected reality, there wouldn't be protests from people who want it to do so.

                      And if doctors were caught on camera behaving like cops, sure as shit there would be protests about that, too – in fact unequal access to medical care and treatement by medical staff is indeed a problem. And yes, there are calls to radically reorient the US healthcare system, I'm surprised you haven't noticed.

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 8:35 pm

                      If article 1 reflected reality

                      A reality that will never be achieved if we head down the path of dividing the human race into an arbitrary number of different categories, and then make them play power games off against each other. That takes us in totally the wrong direction.

                      I say this in a clear mind because I have seen the correct direction at work, at a global scale.

                      And if doctors were caught on camera behaving like cops,

                      Yet if we only ever selectively show their failures, and never their successes of course everyone would arrive at totally biased conclusion. The US medical system needs major reform of course, but that isn't the same as abolishing it.

                      Take a poll right now on how many kiwis think abolishing our health system in the light of COVID-19 is a good idea? Reshaping it's administration yes (and indeed that is exactly what NZ is doing right now), but defund and dismantle most of it? Crazy.

                    • McFlock …
                      20 June 2020 at 9:19 pm

                      The divisions are already there, because systems treat people differently based upon those divisions.

                      All your position does is paper over those structural divisions, rather than resolve them. So we get what is happening in the US right now, because for some people in the US law enforcement is the covid, while claiming to be the doctor treating it. That's why some people say "fuck macy's" and would happily burn it down. People aren't getting the same services from the system, so it's not their system, it's someone else's. So why not burn it down – it can't be worse than keeping it, and even if it terrifies your property-owning self, at least a warlord replacement would be more honest. Not that it would get anywhere close to your capitalist heart's nightmare.

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 9:32 pm

                      So why not burn it down – it can't be worse than keeping it, and even if it terrifies your property-owning self, at least a warlord replacement would be more honest.

                      This from the ex-bouncer who fancies himself a bit of a war-lord eh?

                      And most ironic of all, your brand of self-serving nihilism is for all intents and purposes indistinguishable from that of the Nazi's you profess to hate so much; yet you are really so much like them.

                    • solkta …
                      20 June 2020 at 9:38 pm

                      Godwin's law fuck give it a rest.

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 11:48 pm

                      He's the one big on punching out Nazi's.

                    • McFlock …
                      21 June 2020 at 12:22 am

                      Copy that:

                      punching nazis should be frowned upon,

                      saying "black lives matter" needs to be argued against constantly,

                      and watching a cop kill a restrained man over 8m 46s is just a distraction from all the wonderful policing done across the USA every day.

                  • McFlock …
                    20 June 2020 at 9:54 pm

                    lol not with my prescription count.

                    But nor am I clinging to fairytales in the hope that the established inequalities don't get their what-for before I die.

                    These protests are happening because US democracy does not work for everyone (and those lines are drawn according to ethnicity, right back to the Civil War), the US economic system does not work for everyone (and those lines are drawn according to ethnicity, right back to the Civil War), and the law enforcement and justice systems that protect the economic system do not work for everyone (and those lines are drawn according to ethnicity, right back to the Civil War).

                    Pretending that a report which says "resisting arrest" justifies a killing is simply using a system's own outputs to pretend that system is impartial, as if nobody has ever tweaked a report or even dropped an unmarked weapon next to a corpse.

                    Funnily enough, a story about my dad came out recently – he used to regularly catch a lift with a couple of coworkers in the states, chipping in for petrol. He wanted to do something more to thank them, and they told him that he was doing them the favour – they were black, and having a white guy in the front seat meant they didn't get pulled over three times a trip.

                    That's the lived experience your dodgy stats with their dodgy denominators and probability reversals pretend doesn't exist. I can't figure out whether you're genuinely a bigot or just an engineer-type throwing a big "human does not compute" error when it comes to why these protests are happening, but I don't really care: the output is identical.

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 11:42 pm

                      These protests are happening because US democracy does not work for everyone (and those lines are drawn according to ethnicity, right back to the Civil War), the US economic system does not work for everyone (and those lines are drawn according to ethnicity, right back to the Civil War), and the law enforcement and justice systems that protect the economic system do not work for everyone (and those lines are drawn according to ethnicity, right back to the Civil War).

                      Yet oddly enough if you are of Jamaican or Nigerian immigrant ethnicity, indistinguishable by skin colour from American Blacks you will likely have a completely different social outcome. As for pretending nothing has happened in the USA since the 1600's that's utter bullshit.

                      And in particular the data for black Americans for the past 20 years has all been heading in the right direction. Yes disparities remain, and especially in the most deprived cities. I take your father's amusing anecdote and offer you Ghettoside:

                    • Drowsy M. Kram …
                      20 June 2020 at 11:59 pm

                      "Leovy’s book brings this story into the national debate. The New York Times Book Review noted that her “relentless reporting has produced a book packed with valuable, hard-won insights—and it serves as a crucial, 366-page reminder that ‘black lives matter,’ showing how the ‘system’s failure to catch killers effectively made black lives cheap.’ ” Said the Washington Post, “ Ghettoside, if there’s any justice, will be the most important book about urban violence in a generation.”"
                      https://lithub.com/30-books-in-30-days-mary-ann-gwinn-on-jill-leovys-ghettoside/

                      RL, it's truly disappointing (to me) that you don't believe "Black Lives Matter" is a just cause. Maybe you are a lost cause.

                    • McFlock …
                      21 June 2020 at 12:03 am

                      since the 1600s?? Either your history is fucked up, or you chose a random civil war just to be a waste of space, or you can't parse context like a normal human being does in a discussion.

                      Which is par for the course for your performance in any discussion where someone flips your "omagerd identitarians!" snowflake switch – it's unclear what the exact nature of your malfunction is, but it's pretty obvious you have a major one.

                      As for ghettoside – it's just the flipside of my "funny story" about black people driving outside the ghetto. They're both the same coin of an abject failure in policing over generations. The system you want to keep.

                    • RedLogix …
                      21 June 2020 at 12:54 am

                      it serves as a crucial, 366-page reminder that ‘black lives matter,’

                      Which is precisely why I referenced it. It tells the big story of black deaths in the USA, the ones in the ghettos, black on black, that BLM has remained silent on. It's a horror story I read some years back, written by a person who lived through it for a decade. A story of failures on all sides.

                      Certainly when Chauvin murdered Floyd so graphically, it viscerally triggered all the old nightmares. But history will not be re-written no matter how much we anguish over it, no matter how much we try and burn it down; it can only be confronted and healed with truth and reconciliation. And perhaps then American black people will come to regard their own lives as truly mattering enough to be worth making the very best of, just as their Jamaican and Nigerian kin do.

                      As for the radical revolutionaries who would burn the 'system' down in the name of caring for oppressed, the destination is always the same, catastrophe. If this is what you truly think will help the oppressed I am truly disappointed for you; your dream will only end in bitter ashes.

                    • maggieinnz …
                      21 June 2020 at 1:11 am

                      "genuinely a bigot"

                      I would have used the R word but bigot works too 🙂

                      Ultimately intentions don't matter not that I believe he has genuine concern for black lives. There's nothing in his rhetoric that suggests he's done any internal housekeeping, no soul-searching or examining of his own beliefs. He may well have but the evidence in this thread to the contrary is damning.

                    • RedLogix …
                      21 June 2020 at 10:45 am

                      @Maggie

                      Go back to my original comment on this thread where I pointed to the first Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a core principle, and explain to me how this is racist bigotry. You selectively read into what I write your own dark imaginings.

                      Nah. The real racist bigots on this thread are you, McFlock, soltka and the rest …. who mindlessly support a radical marxist movement that wants to burn the system down. That will have only one outcome, a catastrophe for the most vulnerable … the very black people you only pretend to care about. I can point to the multiple marxist catastrophes of the 20th century as concrete evidence of this.

                      What you really want is the fire. McFlock said so and no-one objected.

                    • The Al1en …
                      21 June 2020 at 11:35 am

                      Nah. The real racist bigots on this thread are you, McFlock, soltka and the rest …. who mindlessly support a radical marxist movement that wants to burn the system down. That will have only one outcome, a catastrophe for the most vulnerable … the very black people you only pretend to care about.

                      🙄

                    • Drowsy M. Kram …
                      21 June 2020 at 11:47 am

                      RL @12:54 am.

                      As for the radical revolutionaries who would burn the 'system' down in the name of caring for oppressed, the destination is always the same, catastrophe. If this is what you truly think will help the oppressed I am truly disappointed for you; your dream will only end in bitter ashes.

                      Buck up RL; don't be disappointed – your well-worn mindreading shtick, attributing thoughts and dreams to me, is in dire need of recalibration.

                      Btw, commenting (@12:54 am):

                      it serves as a crucial, 366-page reminder that ‘black lives matter,’
                      Which is precisely why I [RedLogix] referenced it.

                      after you've written (@2:59 pm):

                      So no, I [RedLogix] do not think BLM is a just cause.

                      is twisted. But please, no more qualifications or clarifications.

                    • RedLogix …
                      21 June 2020 at 11:58 am

                      Believing that black lives really do matter, and supporting a radical marxist political organisation that only cares about black lives when white cops kill them in politically useful circumstances … are not the same thing.

                      But the far left has now made supporting BLM one of it’s critical purity tests. So yes I cheerfully fail on that, however much that twists up your mind.

                      But please, no more qualifications or clarifications.

                      No-one is making you participate here; you have choice over what you read or say.

                    • Drowsy M. Kram …
                      21 June 2020 at 12:15 pm

                      No-one’s forcing either of us, but you’re a ‘delight‘ to engage with.

                      So you [RL] don’t believe 'Black Lives Matter' is a just cause because it has become a tool of "radical marxists"; an instrument of "the far left"?

                      Before it was 'subverted', you would presumably have considered 'Black Lives Matter' to be a just cause, worthy of your support, no? Or did you foresee ‘subversion‘ even then, and pick a ‘side‘ accordingly?

                      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lives_Matter#Founding

                    • RedLogix …
                      21 June 2020 at 12:51 pm

                      BLM failed at conception, the idea was corrupt from the beginning, as is any movement rooted in identity as it's motivating principle. All of them take us in completely the wrong direction.

                      The evolution of humanity … as a conscious and spiritual being … is landmarked by ever increasing levels of social unity. This distinguishes us from our nearest biological cousins the chimpanzees, who at most can achieve a band of some dozens of genetically related chimps, who exist only within a defined territory that they can defend from outsiders. Insiders are family, all others are enemy.

                      Humans broke this brute paradigm when we overlaid this ancient program with an ability to co-operate on a wider basis, ideas of fairness, reciprocity and rules based behaviour have enabled us to progressively expand our social horizons over millennia. First came villages and small towns, then warlording bands of thousands, city empires of millions, and now nation states over a billion.

                      Each level of social expansion required us to expand our moral and spiritual horizons to include others we have previously excluded. The nation state is the highest and largest expression we are familiar with, consisting of millions of individuals, each with differing characteristics, yet able to include themselves into an entity.

                      We saw this in real action this past few months, when the team of 5 million kiwis pulled together to eliminate a disease … and we were all proud at what we achieved together. There is your clue as to what the correct direction is.

                      Well here is my final attempt to convey this. There is one more step to go. There is an uncontestable spiritual truth … the oneness of the human race … we have yet to fully realise. The elimination of poverty, racism, sexism … all the evils the left wants to fight against, are linked to this one single insight; the full unity of the human race, as peoples in all their glorious, unconstrained diversity, is the answer we are looking for.

                      In short whenever I see anyone arguing for separateness, for division, guilt trips, and power game conflict, every fibre of my being knows they are heading in totally the wrong direction. If that makes me an annoying shit on this thread, it's the price I have to pay.

                    • Drowsy M. Kram …
                      21 June 2020 at 1:17 pm

                      BLM failed at conception, the idea was corrupt from the beginning, as is any movement rooted in identity as it's motivating principle. – RL

                      The three black American women who co-founded BLM might take issue with that, however I may conditionally see where you're coming from – I'd just observe that for a great many oppressed and dominated people, identity and faith are their most precious 'attributes', to be defended, not surrendered.

                      "BLM claims inspiration from the civil rights movement, the Black Power movement, the 1980s Black feminist movement, pan-Africanism, the Anti-Apartheid Movement, hip hop, LGBTQ social movements, and Occupy Wall Street."
                      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lives_Matter#Earlier_movements

                    • RedLogix …
                      21 June 2020 at 1:35 pm

                      I'd just observe that for a great many oppressed and dominated people, identity and faith are their most precious 'attributes', to be defended, not surrendered.

                      In that case I ask you this. You have an identity and personal agency that I presume is important to you. Yet you are a member also of multiple levels of social entities, family, community, workplace, ethnicity, maybe a faith, and you are a citizen of a nation.

                      Did you have to surrender any of your important personal attributes in order to do this?

                    • Drowsy M. Kram …
                      21 June 2020 at 3:32 pm

                      Sorry RL, just nipped out for a short walk in the fresh air. As a relatively privileged person, I've largely been able to choose which of my personal attributes to surrender (very few, and none important to me) and which to keep (almost everything).

                      I'm not sure what you're getting at. Do you believe George Floyd's killing could have been averted if some personal attributes had been surrendered? Which attributes, and by who?

                      https://blog.apaonline.org/2020/06/17/black-lives-matter-as-identity-politics-and-class-struggle/

              • solkta …
                19 June 2020 at 9:02 pm

                and it is true that i have wasted a lot of time. But with a six word investment this time i'm feeling OK.

        • Cricklewood 1.2.3.2
          19 June 2020 at 6:11 pm

          What's often forgotten is that police nearly everywhere are poorly paid, deal with shit more horrific than most of us can imagine on a regular basis, receive pretty basic training and most become extremely cynical and I'll bet many suffer from Pstd.

          It's easy to blame individual officers or ‘police’in general when it gets ugly but the reality is society created this and police officers are essentially at the bottom of a cliff attempting to catchpeople as they jump off.

          Fault lies with society and those in power…

        • Win 1.2.3.3
          20 June 2020 at 10:47 am

          Also Māori and Pacifika are also more likely to be killed by cops.

          • Foreign waka 1.2.3.3.1
            20 June 2020 at 2:31 pm

            Please provide proof and details. This dropping statements is very unhelpful.

      • Andre 1.2.4
        19 June 2020 at 4:15 pm

        The problem is, "All Lives Matter" isn't the simple declaration it appears to be. It has effectively become an anti "Black Lives Matter" position.

        The wikipedia article below just starts to scratch the surface of all the aspects of how the various labels don't match the contents, but it's still a useful summary.

        Obama puts it in a nutshell:

        President Barack Obama spoke to the debate between Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter. Obama said, “I think that the reason that the organizers used the phrase Black Lives Matter was not because they were suggesting that no one else’s lives matter … rather what they were suggesting was there is a specific problem that is happening in the African-American community that’s not happening in other communities.” He also said “that is a legitimate issue that we’ve got to address.”

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Lives_Matter

        • observer 1.2.4.1
          19 June 2020 at 4:26 pm

          I just assume now that it's a deliberate ignorance.

          Every decent person knows that all lives matter. Every decent person (not living in a cave) also knows what the phrase is now used for.

          I don't stand outside a court room where a man is on trial for raping a woman, holding a placard saying "men have been raped too". It is 100% true, and 100% vile.

          But we all know this, the importance of context is not difficult to understand, so really it's just trolling.

          • RedLogix 1.2.4.1.1
            19 June 2020 at 4:35 pm

            The context that BLM have created is based on a lie. They have diverted all the attention onto a relatively tiny number of deaths of unarmed black people who have been killed by incompetent, reckless or cops who should never have been in the job. In 2019 the number of such deaths has been variously reported as less than 20 or so. In a country as large as the USA this is actually a remarkably low number.

            And at the same time BLM has repeatedly ignored the vastly larger number of black shooting deaths at the hands of other black perpetrators …again the number varies but it's usually around 5 – 6,000 per year. As far as BLM seems concerned, at least judging on how they act, these black lives are not politically useful in the least.

            There is your context.

            • Andre 1.2.4.1.1.1
              19 June 2020 at 4:41 pm

              Here is something that covers the lived reality of black men's interactions with police. It's something I've personally seen in action, when riding along with black colleagues driving and they've been pulled over for "driving while black".

              https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black-man-white-friends-police_n_5ee788c4c5b69c333237da65

              • RedLogix …
                19 June 2020 at 4:59 pm

                When you have a group of people … black men comprise just 7% of the population … who are known to commit 52% of the homicides, then from the point of view of the ordinary working cop who has just pulled them over, in a country where everyone must be assumed to be armed, the exactly how else do you expect such interactions to go down?

                • Andre …
                  19 June 2020 at 5:44 pm

                  It's turning out to be harder than I'd expect to find data on who actually pose a risk to cops, broken out by race. But going through this CNN piece on cops killed in the line of duty in 2019, white boys certainly feature prominently as the murderers, and if black perps are in fact over-represented relative to their population proportion, I'd guess it's not by much.

                  Meanwhile, racial profiling by police has been an ongoing problem in the US. A large part of the friction between police and various racial groups, blacks in particular, is clearly due to police seeking and instigating unjustified interactions – harassment if you prefer. I've seen it in action.

                  • RedLogix …
                    19 June 2020 at 7:55 pm

                    Again look at this from the cop's perspective. While 50 police deaths in 2019 looks like a small number, that is out of a total population of about 600,000 sworn police in the USA, giving an annual death rate of 0.8 in 10,000 and over the course of a 40 year career about 3 in 1000.

                    That's roughly three times higher than the numbers DtB quoted above at 4:14pm for the equivalent lifetime risk of black men and boys being killed by police.

                    Of course police are biased and selective; it is their damned job to sort out the bad from the good. The question is not that whether they are selective, but whether the grounds they use to arrive at their biases are rational and justified or not.

                    • maggieinnz …
                      20 June 2020 at 12:35 am

                      Heya Red, good to see you're still you're old feisty self.

                      Couple of points;

                      "While 50 police deaths in 2019 looks like a small number, that is out of a total population of about 600,000 sworn police in the USA, giving an annual death rate of 0.8 in 10,000 and over the course of a 40 year career about 3 in 1000.

                      That's roughly three times higher than the numbers DtB quoted above at 4:14pm for the equivalent lifetime risk of black men and boys being killed by police."

                      This is a false equivalency. The two groups don't have the same risk exposure so the comparison is meaningless. Cops, by the very nature of their work have a far higher environmental risk factor which contributes to the statistics. For your numbers to be meaningful you'd have to correct for environment.

                      "Of course police are biased and selective; it is their damned job to sort out the bad from the good. The question is not that whether they are selective, but whether the grounds they use to arrive at their biases are rational and justified or not."

                      It doesn't work that way. Sorting out the good from the bad does not require bias but rather rational reasoning. Biases are simply preferences and we have over 200 of them which we use everyday. You start with biases, not arrive at them. What cops must do is make decisions fast and in spite of any racial bias (if present). The problem is it's very easy to justify racial bias after the fact, especially if the actions were as a result of implicit (subconscious) bias.

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 1:31 am

                      Cops, by the very nature of their work have a far higher environmental risk factor which contributes to the statistics.

                      I think that is exactly my point, the environment is the relevant factor for police, and I would expect them to adapt to that elevated risk by selectively paying more attention to what they perceive as the most dangerous elements in it.

                      Given that there is clear evidence from this study that this effect applies to all police, regardless of ethnicity:

                      We find no evidence of anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparities across shootings, and White officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers.

                      In other words racism may have much less to do with it than we are being told … and much more to do with the environment police have to operate in.

                      The problem is it's very easy to justify racial bias after the fact, especially if the actions were as a result of implicit (subconscious) bias.

                      Of course we all have subconscious bias. It's a point I have made in various forms repeatedly. The most basic one is sexual selection, we choose mates on the basis of largely unconscious biological signals we have no awareness of.

                      We have a very real bias toward those who are most genetically close to us like children, siblings, cousins and so forth.

                      We have a very real bias and preference for people who act like us, and whom we share social habits and values with. We all have at least some degree of bias against outsiders and strangers. Virtually no-one for instance would be comfortable with total strangers walking into their bedroom at random, it's not just a bad idea we can logically rationalise, but one that makes most people deeply (subconciously) uncomfortable.

                      The subconscious tilts much of our behaviour in various directions for good evolutionary reasons. All of these biases serve useful purposes in different contexts.

                      It's my contention that we are all hardwired for a biological loyalty to those we are genetically related to. This behaviour is seen in virtually all higher order creatures, but it's innately limited to a tribal scope, at best no more than 150 individuals.

                      But humans are almost unique in that we have evolved the conscious ability to develop social bonds and loyalties based on reciprocity, rules and fairness. These are behaviours that enable us to create complex social orders, at virtually unlimited size and scope.

                      And more relevantly for this conversation, they are behaviours we can develop, extend and when we fail in them, can be held accountable for. When an individual or group chooses to speak or act out demeaning prejudices and oppression on other ethnic groups this is racism that you can see, point to and measured. It can be confronted and we can choose to do better.

                      But when we dismantle the basis for social cooperation, by making everything about identity, then indeed we default back to the ancient subconscious genetic ethnic loyalties. And those old tribalism's are mindlessly murderous.

                    • maggieinnz …
                      20 June 2020 at 3:00 am

                      No. You made a false comparison between the lifetime risk for black men being killed by cops and cops being killed on the job.

                      "the environment is the relevant factor for police, and I would expect them to adapt to that elevated risk by selectively paying more attention to what they perceive as the most dangerous elements in it."

                      If you consider black men as 'dangerous elements' then this amounts to racism.

                      Cops are trained to operate above their bias but often the training is insufficient. Also, cops are not supposed to be selective in their attention but dispersive – they are taught to scan and assess – not specific people but behaviours.

                      Even studies that find no racial bias in shootings of black people still find significant evidence of racial bias in police dealings with black people. This ought to be a significant red flag that something is amiss either the methodology of the research or in the raw data itself.

                      "In other words racism may have much less to do with it than we are being told … and much more to do with the environment police have to operate in."

                      Racism has everything to do with this.

                      https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3596274

                      “the number of shootings per year changed little from 2015 to 2018.”

                      Police killings 2015-2018 Total: 3757 (POC make up 48.15% of victims)

                      Blacks: 945 (25.15%)

                      Whites: 1948 (51.85%)

                      Latinx: 701 (18.66%)

                      Other: 163 (4.34%)

                      Blacks who are fleeing are 1.22 times more likely to be killed by police than whites who are fleeing when adjusted for covariates.

                      First, the number of officers feloniously killed in action in a county is a consistent predictor of killings across categories. Comparing the threat results with this predictor suggests that the risk perceived by officers may be emphasized when the victim is Black but not for other racial or ethnic groups.

                      Next, neither the violent-crime rate in a county nor the population distribution for any racial or ethnic group is a significant predictor of police killings. The same is true for economic inequality, as measured by Black-white and Latinx-white income ratios. This raises some doubt on the role of racial threat and conflict theories as factors in the rates of police killings, though other studies suggest that these factors may be present in police use of force generally. In these models, there may be little else to explain the observed patterns other than the race or ethnicity of the suspect."

                      "Of course we all have subconscious bias… The most basic one is sexual selection …We have a very real bias toward those who are most genetically close to us like children…. We have a very real bias and preference for people who act like us …We all have at least some degree of bias against outsiders and strangers… it's not just a bad idea we can logically rationalise, but one that makes most people deeply (subconciously) uncomfortable. The subconscious tilts much of our behaviour in various directions for good evolutionary reasons"

                      You're confusing/mixing up biases with genetic traits/hormones.

                      Biases are learned preferences based on passed experiences (including narratives). Genetic traits do indeed influence behaviour as do hormones.

                      Consider that we are biologically hard-wired to want to reproduce but most of us refrain from humping a slow moving prospective mate in broad daylight in front of an audience; we are biologically programmed to poop yet we don't drop our pants and shit in the middle of the office.

                      We have the ability to learn appropriateness so such primal urges can be over-ridden by the frontal lobe which is responsible for helping us do the hard things (like not shooting people we are biased against).

                      I don't mean to be rude but I'm going to skip over all the loyalty/tribal/evo/biology stuff because there's such a mix of bad science and misunderstanding that it would take me forever to show you why you're wrong. I'll come back to this when I have the patience to do so.

                      "When an individual or group chooses to speak or act out demeaning prejudices and oppression on other ethnic groups this is racism that you can see, point to and measured."

                      How do you measure racism when no one is keeping track?
                      The Death In Custody Reporting Act 2013 which went into effect in December 2014, but federal officials have not yet gathered the data and made it public. That should scare the shit out of you regardless of the colour of your skin. The justice system has an obligation to ensure your safety in custody yet they have repeatedly failed the American people by not providing data that can help do that. You have to ask yourself why.

                      An investigation into the Department of Justice’s failure to implement the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013 resulted in a 54-page 'explanation in which it notes that state-level data collection “will be delayed until at least FY 2020,” which ends Sept. 30, 2020.

                      But still there are some who are collecting data. For deaths you can check The Washington Post’s national database cataloging fatal shootings by police was last updated June 1. I don't have access to this so can't tell you what's on it but this one here for 2015/2016 includes a set of filters, one of which is 'classification' – in that tab you'll find "deaths in custody". But understand that the data is limited because the agencies aren't releasing data so it only has publicly known deaths.

                      This website Fatal Encounters is an independently maintained database of all deaths through police interaction in the United States since Jan. 1, 2000. Casual researchers can browse through the data. They say on their website:

                      “The nation’s leading law enforcement agency [FBI] collects vast amounts of information on crime nationwide, but missing from this clearinghouse are statistics on where, how often, and under what circumstances police use deadly force. In fact, no one anywhere comprehensively tracks the most significant act police can do in the line of duty: take a life,” according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal in its series Deadly Force (Nov. 28, 2011)."

                      And this explanation for why accurate data is hard to find:
                      "A primary obstacle to the study of police use of force has been the lack of readily available data. Data on lower level uses of force, which happen more frequently than officer-involved shootings, are virtually non-existent. This is due, in part, to the fact that most police precincts don’t explicitly collect data on use of force, and in part, to the fact that even when the data is hidden in plain view within police narrative accounts of interactions with civilians, it is exceedingly difficult to extract. Moreover, the task of compiling rich data on officer-involved shootings is burdensome. Until recently, data on officer-involved shootings were extremely rare and contained little information on the details surrounding an incident. A simple count of the number of police shootings that occur does little to explore whether racial differences in the frequency of officer-involved shootings are due to police malfeasance or differences in suspect behavior."

                      Source: An Empirical Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force
                      https://www.nber.org/papers/w22399

                    • RedLogix …
                      20 June 2020 at 11:02 am

                      If you consider black men as 'dangerous elements' then this amounts to racism.

                      Every cop understands that black men, consisting 7% of the population are responsible for about 52% of the homicides. Facts are not racist. (Males commit around 80% of all homicides but it would be insane to call this fact 'sexist'.)

                      And from the perspective of the average cop who objectively faces a risk of death three times higher than even black men … the group most at risk from the police… the comparison is entirely relevant. Or at least it probably is to their family when he/she doesn't come home from work one day.

                      It's an absolute nonsense to think these realities do not feed into police perceptions and decision making to some degree.

                      Blacks who are fleeing are 1.22 times more likely to be killed by police than whites who are fleeing when adjusted for covariates.

                      And that is pretty much in line with what I'd expect given the high stress, high reactivity of these events; police will start acting out reflexive behaviours, partly determined by instinct and partly by training. Training can overlay and mitigate instinct, but it can never replace it. Even for cops of black and latino ethnicity, their reactions to the environment they're in are exactly the same as for white cops. The paper I linked to above demonstrates this point, as does the fact that decades of increasing numbers of ethnic police has had little impact.

                      (And the suggestion that all black or latino cops become biased because they magically absorb the attitudes of the all the white racist cops they work with is just fucking absurd and insulting.)

                      Consider that we are biologically hard-wired to want to reproduce but most of us refrain from humping a slow moving prospective mate in broad daylight in front of an audience;

                      That definitely true most of the time, but consider what happens when the normal rules of society break down, such as wartime. Suddenly these constraints are apt to horribly collapse.

                      And anyone who thinks they could never do such a thing is a naive fool who has never been in a position where they could do anything truly evil and be almost certain of getting away with it.

                      This is a mistake I see the far left making all the time, it pretends that biology can be ignored. Well you only have to look at two unrelated groups of chimpanzees meeting at the border of their territories to see biological loyalty in action. Undeniably this behaviour is hardwired into us and remains our default programming when our conscious social loyalties are diminished or damaged.

                      Yet by making race and identity the only thing that matters does just that, dismantling our social cohesion and inevitably driving us directly back into the brutal arms of our genetics. This is incredibly dangerous.

                    • maggieinnz …
                      21 June 2020 at 12:52 am

                      "Every cop understands that black men, consisting 7% of the population are responsible for about 52% of the homicides. Facts are not racist. (Males commit around 80% of all homicides but it would be insane to call this fact 'sexist'.)"

                      Intelligent, rational people understand the limitations of statistics and that acting on them prima facie is irrational, biased, and amounts to racism.

                      It's not the so-called "facts" that I'm calling racist – it is anyone who thinks it's reasonable to treat black men as though they are a dangerous element for no other reason than that they are 'black men'. If someone thought it was reasonable to treat men differently because they represent such a large proportion of murderers then they would be sexist.

                      "It's an absolute nonsense to think these realities do not feed into police perceptions and decision making to some degree."

                      Oh, I agree. The problem is that whilst their behaviour can be understood it cannot be excused or condoned and if they can’t learn to exercise critical thinking and self control then they shouldn’t have a gun and a badge; simple as that. If they think there is a "reality" in which those statistics are meaningful then they’re not fit for the job. For example, according to your "logic" because 98% of rapes are committed by males (of which 75% are white and 23% are black) it is reasonable for cops to treat white men as rapists. By it's very definition doing so would be racist and sexist.

                      I also never said only white cops are racist. Black people can be racist against black people. Secondly, you're directly contradicting yourself because you say "given the high stress, high reactivity of these events; police will start acting out reflexive behaviours, partly determined by instinct and partly by training." and then "And the suggestion that all black or latino cops become biased because they magically absorb the attitudes of the all the white racist cops they work with is just fucking absurd and insulting." Yet another failure in your "logic". Right there you say the job is so stressful cops can't help themselves and then back track to say it's absurd and insulting that cops are influenced by their environment. Make up your mind.

                      "That definitely true most of the time, but consider what happens when the normal rules of society break down, such as wartime. Suddenly these constraints are apt to horribly collapse."

                      Even in wartime men are not drooling horndogs. Yes, wartime rape is real but it is a much different beast.

                      "This is a mistake I see the far left making all the time, it pretends that biology can be ignored."

                      Far from ignoring biology, the left actually understand it. They understand that the frontal lobe takes 25 years to finish developing for a reason, that it is designed with biological mechanisms for social learning. They understand the burden of inequality, it's cost to us all, they understand the systemic nature of bias, racism and privilege and it's blinding effects. They understand the nuance of hormones, gender, sexuality and identity. It is only the ignorant who refuse to acknowledge these things or who think evolution didn't occur above the neck.

                      "Well you only have to look at two unrelated groups of chimpanzees meeting at the border of their territories to see biological loyalty in action. Undeniably this behaviour is hardwired into us and remains our default programming when our conscious social loyalties are diminished or damaged."

                      It's just not that simple, Red. Like I've said all along, it's a complex blend of genes, hormones, learning and environment.

                      Let me introduce you to Robert Sapolsky, authour of 'Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst'. The first video is under 4 min so I'm sure you can manage https://youtu.be/QZcTvFqzxA0. It's about a baboon troup who, by an unfortunate series of events, ended up with a completely different culture than is normally seen. A fascinating example of how our behaviour isn't hard-wired. The second video is a longer talk of his (still only 15 min) on human behaviour and its causes, https://youtu.be/ORthzIOEf30. I highly recommend you watch them.

                      He also has a series of lectures on youtube hosted by Stanford University on Human Behavioural Biology which are accessible and informative.

                      "Yet by making race and identity the only thing that matters does just that, dismantling our social cohesion and inevitably driving us directly back into the brutal arms of our genetics. This is incredibly dangerous."

                      What is dangerous, Red, is willful ignorance. I'm not expecting you to change your mind but you owe it to yourself to get educated. The fact that you are willing to publicly display your complete lack of understanding about basic social and biological processes whilst pointing at the left as shamefully stupid is a monkey in the mirror moment and one you ought to be embarrassed about.

        • common sense 1.2.4.2
          19 June 2020 at 6:16 pm

          obama was the biggest let down ever.. he was a master of deception and wordplay.

          Once history has time to dissect his actions his name will carry shame. In the very near future information will come to light that will show obamas true nature . A liar , a thief and a traitor

      • common sense 1.2.5
        19 June 2020 at 4:37 pm

        Redlogix you have hit the nail on the head .

        When i saw that church getting grief for the sign that said all lives matter i was concerned. A church in essence should offer salvation for all. is this not self evident?

        All lives matter being a racist statement is absurd . The statement all lives matter elevates no one but accepts all .HOW THE FUCK IS THAT RACIST . it clearly implies all people are equal. meaning black lives matter . duhhhhhhh

        Your final summary is absolutely correct. It is simply a form of division..

        Poverty is the largest division and causes the most friction in society.. If floyed had money and resources no cop of any color would lay a hand on him.. police fear people with the resources to defend themselves and they just wot go there. show me a billionaire of any colour who died at the police hands

        Point me to a district of poverty and i will show you many races that are struggling and have challenges in life that wealthy areas dont experience. I strongly disagree with any human being treated badly because they dont have the resources to defend themselves

        I think your statement of identity politics summarizes the real issue and offers context to the statement above . "I have a terrible feeling this tragedy is going to be politicised by the right, particularly by the ‘All Lives Matter’ racists." . This statement causes division. In my experience the majority of people sit moderate center.. There are nutters on the far right ie boogaloo bois and nutters on the far left ie antifa . Both use force and violence to force their will on the majority . In my eyes moderate left and moderate right just want a peaceful life and share a lot of common ground, common ground leads to constructive conversation

        There can never be a perfect society.. We have to make concessions in order to have freedoms. Unfortunately sometimes these concessions carry a high price.. While my heart goes out to the family of the officers that were harmed i personally can not see with the details i have at hand how arming the police would have changed anything

        • Draco T Bastard 1.2.5.1
          19 June 2020 at 6:30 pm

          All lives matter being a racist statement is absurd . The statement all lives matter elevates no one but accepts all .HOW THE FUCK IS THAT RACIST . it clearly implies all people are equal. meaning black lives matter .

          Then why is it used in opposition to black lives matter by white people?

          If it portrays the same sentiment then wouldn't they be marching in concert and not in opposition?

          The All Lives Matter people are racists that don't like having their racism pointed out.

          In my experience the majority of people sit moderate center..

          Is there such a thing as a moderate centre?

          While my heart goes out to the family of the officers that were harmed i personally can not see with the details i have at hand how arming the police would have changed anything

          Arming the police inevitably results in the criminals being better armed and thus a greater threat to society.

          • McFlock 1.2.5.1.1
            19 June 2020 at 7:00 pm

            What's the line? "Nobody says 'all lives matter' until other people say that black lives matter as much as anyone else's."

            • In Vino 1.2.5.1.1.1
              19 June 2020 at 7:29 pm

              Can't some of you see that some racists are piggy-backing on the 'All Lives Matter' slogan?

              Nobody said that all proponents of 'All Lives Matter' are racist.

              Some of you wrongly interpreted what was actually written.

                • common sense …
                  19 June 2020 at 9:06 pm

                  Anne what you have presented there is click bait that only serves to give the author some screen time by seizing on social unrest.. the author is unethical and so is the content..

                  My rebuttal is the same

                  This clip would frustrate some and cause divide also in the community https://www.bitchute.com/video/uTbU2YCfJtdF/

                  • Anne …
                    20 June 2020 at 11:04 am

                    NOUN

                    • (on the Internet) content whose main purpose is to attract attention and encourage visitors to click on a link to a particular web page.

                    From the Oxford dictionary.

                    Clickbait my foot. Where in that article is there any attempt to guide the reader to a link of ill repute? Answer – none apart form a few unrelated ads.

                    It's actual footage of an attempt by a bunch of NZ racists to try and muddy the waters in response to the world wide protest movement, 'Black Lives Matter' and a brave young Asian woman who tried to rub out their chalked messages.

              • common sense …
                19 June 2020 at 8:56 pm

                in vino .

                Yes that can be clearly seen, its also clear that both have been infiltrated if you look closely..

                Theres hateful dicks infiltrating all good movements .. They use them as shields to behave badly without consequences .. I can see them , can you?

                The biggest problem with the world is that kind people dont want confrontation.. it makes it hard to get them to stand up for themselves.. They would rather turn the other cheek than have an altercation . this is how and why people with bad intentions get so much traction even though they are such a small percentage

          • common sense 1.2.5.1.2
            19 June 2020 at 8:38 pm

            Many white people are marching with blm .. i often see more white faces in the crowd.

            If all lives matter is used in opposition to blm then the people using it are delusional.. thats the greatest oxymoron ever. There is always going to be haters in the world but i believe the majority of people see through the bullshit.

            I believe all lives matter and if you think im racist come and have a look at my xmas dinner , its a rainbow filipino , indian , maori , european we are a really mixed bunch .

            By moderate centre i mean they sit in the middle but may lean to the left or right.. ideally they dont give a shit as long as your not pissing them off.. they just want peaceful lives and dont get into politics

            And finally we agree.. Arming the police equals more arms for the underground.. The last gun laws were enforced in such a way that it pissed the public off and everyone sold there guns to the underground so felt they had some part in the decisions of what happens to their guns.. The underground is now so heavily armed they could take on the army. I hope this dosnt become a more common occurrence or we will have to allow the police to arm themselves in order to defend themselves.. a situation i would rather not see

      • maggieinnz 1.2.6
        20 June 2020 at 12:53 am

        I think perhaps there's a fundamental misunderstanding of meaning here. I'll come right out and say that I believe the phrase "All Lives Matter" is racist because it's used as a reactive slogan against the BLM movement. But I don't consider all people who use ALM as racists. Many people say ALM out of ignorance for what BLM means. Let me explain.

        Firstly, the slogan carries a two-fold semantic meaning;
        It makes a normative claim about what we ought to care about and a descriptive claim about what we actually do care about. In this way the BLM slogan is stating that we ought to care more (than we currently do) about black lives, and secondly they're making the claim because they believe that society doesn't actually care enough about black lives (and according to research they're right); so they're making the normative claim to stimulate change in the descriptive reality.

        The "All Lives Matter" slogan wasn't originally a racist slogan but has become one because it's been appropriated by those who align with a group of people who, in fact, believe that we do care enough (again, supported by research) about black lives. These people assume that the BLM slogan carries a quantity implicature as though to say only Black lives matter which it does not and a visit to the BLM homepage is evidence of this.

        If you react to the BLM slogan with ALM it amounts to a whataboutism and you're not engaging in a cooperative conversation about social issues but rather a divisive one because you're refusing to align yourself with the BLM movement on a moral level.

        And really, it shouldn't be so hard – simply ask yourself "do black lives matter?" It's a yes or no question and if you can't answer it without appending 'but' then you're not engaging with the cause cooperatively; as to what that implies I'll leave up to you to decide.

        • Tiger Mountain 1.2.6.1
          22 June 2020 at 8:08 am

          Very well summarised. redlogix torrent of words attempts, and miserably fails, to obscure what he really thinks.

  2. Anker 2
    19 June 2020 at 3:27 pm

    Deeply saddened to hear this.

    of late I have felt sick and tired of all the overgeneralisations (negative) about the police.

    they frequently put their lives on the line and deal with some of the worst people/most dangerous situations

    my heart go out to the officer’s family

  3. Brutus Iscariot 3
    19 June 2020 at 3:30 pm

    Too early to tell, but this may be an inevitable result of bombarding messages telling people that it's OK to blame all your problems on evil whitey, and express hatred of the police. The timing is suspicious to say the least.

  4. Corey Humm 4
    19 June 2020 at 3:59 pm

    Did the above read this? The article said arming the police wouldn't have changed much, they do have access to guns through their car and they should absolutely keep that access but I'm not comfortable with any further arming

    • Tricledrown 4.1
      19 June 2020 at 6:18 pm

      Having a fire arms register would reduce the number of guns stolen.

      Winston pushed that back 3 years get some balls Peter's tough on Crime.

      Let vast numbers of guns with no tracing gun laws need tightening promptly.

  5. McFlock 5
    19 June 2020 at 4:03 pm

    Sad news. We have our problems in NZ, but needless death is always sad.

    • Janet 5.1
      19 June 2020 at 4:35 pm

      I think it would be more effective to make killing a policeman a capital offence again rather than arm the police.

      • Macro 5.1.1
        19 June 2020 at 4:43 pm

        I think whoever perpetrated the crime is going to spend a long time in gaol – probably an even worse outcome than capital punishment.

      • mpledger 5.1.2
        20 June 2020 at 10:15 am

        No. Capital punishment doesn't allow for mistakes in correctly finding guilt or innocence. Once a person is dead there is no possible compensation.

        I don't think making the consequences more punitive will stop young people making bad decisions in the moment.

  6. millsy 6
    19 June 2020 at 4:48 pm

    Conservatives and authoritarians are going to use this as a stick to beat the BLM movement with, even though those who shot these cops are probably hardened criminals who would have shot them in any case.

    It's also worth pointing out that most killings of police officers in NZ have been done by Pakeha males, with a significant subset of that having a military background

    • McFlock 6.1
      19 June 2020 at 6:14 pm

      Even hardcore BLM protestors tend to avoid cruising the streets with loaded firearms.

  7. Craig H 7
    19 June 2020 at 6:38 pm

    All lives matter is a self-evident statement, and yet, originators and initial proponents of the phrase don't actually believe it themselves as seen in their support of capital punishment. It was not created in good faith, and is best left alone.

  8. Climaction 8
    19 June 2020 at 7:10 pm

    Bodies are still warm and TRP is politicising this. As if a Facebook feed full of injustice justifies the need to deliver your creed.

    fight Facebook on Facebook, leave murder victims alone here

  9. mickysavage 9
    19 June 2020 at 8:06 pm

    Tena koutou katoa

    Speaking from Waitakere West Auckland …

    I have been urgently checking to see if I knew the police officer who had been shot or if I knew the shooter. Neither identity has been released yet so I don't know but West Auckland is a fairly small place …

    I accept that the culture war ignited by American Police Force behaviour is spreading throughout the world. Black lives do matter.

    To be frank out west the situation is much more complex. You cannot attend any local event involving the police without noticing their commitment to multiculturalism and to Te Ao Maori. Many of our officers are Tangata Whenua or Pacifeka.

    After 36 years of this job all I can see is shades of grey. When I first started practising law the police force was hardened and conservative and single minded. Back then everything was black and white. Now like the rest of us local police only want the best.

    The causes of this event can very probably be related to poverty and racial disadvantage, and almost inevitably to drug use. But this is not an American like situation or a cause for a call to arms. This is a tragedy.

    • OnceWasTim 9.1
      19 June 2020 at 8:29 pm

      Ae @Mr Savage. And there's a good chance that a Coster signals at least a little bit of hope and change

    • anker 9.2
      19 June 2020 at 10:26 pm

      Mickey with all due respect and I really do respect your thoughtful posts etc. we don't even know the ethnicity of the young man who has just been charged with the. murder. Nor the ethnicity of the policeman yet.

      We don't know if poverty played into it or not. Many crimes are drug related and not all drug related criminals come from a background of poverty. But then I am speculating too.

      I have felt the police have improved enormously here. How they handled the Black Lives matter at the end of whatever level we were in, how they dealt with lockdown offenders was incredible. I am very, very sad about this policman's murder

    • roblogic 9.3
      20 June 2020 at 3:48 pm

      Thanks mickysavage for injecting some balance. This is a New Zealand event and the BLM stuff is not relevant to this tragedy

  10. OnceWasTim 10
    19 June 2020 at 8:07 pm

    OK ([mandatory] "so"…………) now that I've calmed down a bit, if I were you @TRP, I'd get off my social media feeds for a while, if only because they seem to be causing you to have a need to instantly comment. This post at 15:10 – only a couple of hours after the public announcement that a policeman had been killed, and another two people were hospitalised from being shot.

    When I looked at the post, it's headed West Auckland Shooting: Two police officers have been shot in West Auckland. Is it time to arm the Police? Which is about as loaded as a Newstalk ZB gotcha scatter gun.

    And then my response at 1.1 (instantly wanting to tell you you were being about as tacky as Heather d P-A or most other specimens that pivot to the ZB platform going forward in that space)

    I'm not sure if you've ever had a loaded pistol held at your head by a drug-fucked nutter – effectively as a hostage. And then later having an adrenaline-rinsed detective doing much the same, assuming you're in cahoots with the drug-fucked.

    If I were you, I'd get off the social media feeds for a while and sample the reality of life rather than the virtual…..but then thankfully, you're not me. But just as in the real world as the virtual, when you hang around the barber shop – chances are you'll get your hair chopped

    Most humble apologies kemosabe (You're still bloody gorgeous though, but it is just a tiny bit tacky)

  11. Anker 11
    19 June 2020 at 8:11 pm

    Yes I think it is unfortunate we have got into this sort of debate the same day a police officer has been shot dead.

    i regret I commented on this post, although my comment was mainly to express my condolences

  12. anker 12
    19 June 2020 at 10:27 pm

    Mickey with all due respect and I really do respect your thoughtful posts etc. we don't even know the ethnicity of the young man who has just been charged with the. murder. Nor the ethnicity of the policeman yet.

    We don't know if poverty played into it or not. Many crimes are drug related and not all drug related criminals come from a background of poverty. But then I am speculating too.

    I have felt the police have improved enormously here. How they handled the Black Lives matter at the end of whatever level we were in, how they dealt with lockdown offenders was incredible. I am very, very sad about this policman's murder

  13. greywarshark 13
    19 June 2020 at 10:54 pm

    When Australia has a drought Red Logix gets more time to comment – no lawns to mow, no garden to tend. I guess there'll be action right through till election time.

    • RedLogix 13.1
      19 June 2020 at 11:30 pm

      It's winter here in Brisbane, and it's rained quite a bit this week thanks. No lawns to mow, but you'd be surprised at what else I got done today. Plenty of action …. devil

  14. greywarshark 14
    19 June 2020 at 10:57 pm

    It appears it was a routine traffic stop

    Why would a traffic stop be part of a routine? Shouldn't they be special cases or emergencies? I think the crime rate would go down if police just stopped being so in-your-face.

    • RedLogix 14.1
      19 June 2020 at 11:42 pm

      You know as it happens all over the world crime, homicide in particular, has been trending downward since it hit a peak in the 80's.

    • Sacha 14.2
      20 June 2020 at 1:39 pm

      Why would a traffic stop be part of a routine?

      Car was already flagged on their system – suggests associated with a previous offence. Not unusual that they would pull it over in such circumstances. Happens all the time.

  16. Sabine 16
    20 June 2020 at 10:30 am

    An eye for an eye and everyone ends up blind, also have a good luck what happens elsewhere when you arm the police and pretend that they are 'policing' war zones at home.

    Rather put that money towards mental health, drug rehabilitation, housing, public education, and sane drug politics.

    But i guess that is less sexy then "Give the coppers some guns!

    • roblogic 16.1
      20 June 2020 at 1:34 pm

      Equality and justice go together; it's not either/or

      • Sabine 16.1.1
        20 June 2020 at 3:00 pm

        yes, however we don't spend money on drug rehabilitation – unless you go to prison, there you gets a little something (as we learned when the son of a friend of ours went of the rails. Nothing in the free market, nothing from the welfare state, but everything when they finally locked him up.

        housing? oh well we know all about that, right?

        public education, good if you have a stable home, not so good if you move school every time your parents move house.

        sane drug politics? lol, all we get is a referendum and no gummi bears.

        the point is that equality and justice are something for those who can afford it, and yes, it is either / or, never was any different.

        • Stunned Mullet 16.1.1.1
          20 June 2020 at 3:15 pm

          Not sure what part of the country you are in but there are services such as CADS in Auckland which offer assistance.

          http://www.cads.org.nz/what-we-do/

          • Sabine 16.1.1.1.1
            20 June 2020 at 3:23 pm

            i lived for almost 20 years in West Auckland ,i used to have my business in West Auckland, my Partners family has always lived in West Auckland.

            And no, my friends son got no help, and you know why? Cause there are not enough re-habilitation programs, and beds – above all beds to give the care and help to those who want it (i do not say need it, cause that is another matter all together).

            In the street i had my business, nice little residential fringe not far from lincoln road during the last three years of the John Key "Do fuck all" reign, it was easier to get (and most likely still is) meth before you could get a tinny.

            So yeah, we have programs, but they are not nearly enough to care for those that need and want it. No need to point to links, we drove even to the 'christian' pray away the addiction centres.

            No her boy today lives, because he finally made it onto NZ wanted and gave himself up. It was either that and maybe live or die.

            And we do not spend any money on that, nor the mental health issues that often are the lead up to drug use.

            And we don't have any sane drug policies. Unless of course you could link to our really super duper drug policies, that keep repeat offender on the straight n narrow, that keep our recovering addicts of the sauce, and that keep young ones out of hte prisons of bullshit drug abuse charges.

  17. roblogic 17
    20 June 2020 at 12:48 pm

    I wish TRP had expressed a tiny bit of sympathy for the police instead of tastelessly jumping straight into divisive comments about BLM and arming cops. Blue lives matter too. My condolences to the Police and the families affected.

    NZ police have a tough job but most do it with good intentions to serve and protect the community. They could have pushed to keep the Armed Response teams; they could have been much tougher on the public during lockdown. NZ cops are lightyears apart from the untrained trigger-happy dodgy cowboys in the USA.

    Cops and nurses and teachers can barely afford to live in NZ and yet we say they are "essential".

    • te reo putake 17.1
      20 June 2020 at 2:42 pm

      I'm surprised you don't agree with me when I wrote that the killing was a tragedy, but perhaps you lack empathy. Or maybe it's just reading skills you're short on. Hard to tell.

      • Stunned Mullet 17.1.1
        20 June 2020 at 2:47 pm

        I think you're being far too hard on roblogic, with not nearly enough self reflection on the timing and flavour of your post.

        • te reo putake 17.1.1.1
          20 June 2020 at 3:21 pm

          Tough. If commenters want to have a crack at an author, they’d better be sure they get their facts right. As for the timing, it was an ongoing news event at the time I wrote the post. Immediacy is a vital part of modern media. If you want to read considered academic analysis of things that happened in the past, buy a magazine. If you can find one 😉

          Regarding the flavour, the post is short and factual. I also expressed my concern that the racist right would try to politicise the killing, and so it has come to pass, including within the commentary on the post. I’m not losing sleep over my words. However, to be clear, the death of any worker on the job is a terrible thing.

          • maggieinnz 17.1.1.1.1
            20 June 2020 at 3:28 pm

            I appreciate the reporting and agree with your concerns however I haven't seen much of his death being politicised. Even most of the comments I've seen (on other sites) are reflective of the US situation and not framed in terms of NZ police. Almost exclusively I've seen an outpouring of compassion and grief for which I am greatly relieved.

            The US situation has only served to steel my gratitude for our country as imperfect as it is.

            And my gratitude extends to you, TRP, and the others here who're trying their best to provide a forum for discussion on important issues.

          • Stunned Mullet 17.1.1.1.2
            20 June 2020 at 4:11 pm

            'I’m not losing sleep over my words.'

            I'm sure you're not, the fact remains your critique of robligic was fact free and unfair.

            • te reo putake 17.1.1.1.2.1
              20 June 2020 at 6:27 pm

              Actually, my response was all about a fact. Specifically the fact that roblogic was incorrect to suggest I hadn’t “expressed a tiny bit of sympathy”. And it’s not “unfair” to make this correction, however snarky, given that unfounded claims against authors can, and do, result in bans.

              • roblogic …
                24 June 2020 at 5:08 pm

                So the death of a cop is a mere footnote for your political wheelbarrow and you don't like being criticised for that. Cool

    • Foreign waka 17.2
      20 June 2020 at 2:50 pm

      Thank you for some matter of fact comments. When I read through the comments all that seems to be expressed, not just in this forum, is as much political as egotistical, a lot of "what about me" and " we want revenge, lets start a fight" so to speak.

    • maggieinnz 18.1
      20 June 2020 at 3:22 pm

      How utterly devastating for his family. I've heard some lovely stories about him – a genuinely kind and sincere person.

    • observer 18.2
      20 June 2020 at 3:46 pm

      Heartbreaking to read about him, his young life snuffed out so pointlessly.

      RIP.

  19. weston 19
    20 June 2020 at 9:44 pm

    Fox news is pushing the 'all lives matter ' line hard all week in fact their reporting is so biased its like theyre deliberately trying to start a new civil war !imo

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