Tagged: greg o’connor
Police officers given green light to abuse their power
How’s that changing-our-repugnant-police-culture going?
Police officers who deliberately faked their uniform badge numbers to avoid being identified as they weighed into a violent public protest will keep their jobs and won’t be investigated by the force’s watchdog.
Because?
Despite the pre-meditation involved, the Independent Police Conduct Authority decided the three officers’ behaviour was not serious enough to warrant its attention, saying investigators were too busy dealing with cases involving death and bodily harm.
Here’s the big issue (right after “either the IPCA has fuck-all investigators or our Police are physically injuring/killing so many people that a well-staffed IPCA is overrun with cases”): why the fuck are our police officers taking deliberate, explicit steps to hide their identities in the first place?
And why the fuck do we have a Police Commissioner whose response basically reads as “dammit, boys, if you must make us look bad at least do it smartly so you don’t get caught!”:
“I hope it isn’t true, but if such stupidity did occur – give me strength,” Marshall wrote in his blog on the police website. “Talk about scoring an own goal.”
It is true. It wasn’t “stupidity”, it was a deliberate step to avoid identification in a situation where the officers involved felt strangely certain that their behaviour might incite complaints from members of the public.
But when the Police Commissioner describes it as “an own goal”, as “foolishness”, not “a perversion of the course of justice and a wilful attempt to avoid detection while roughing people up and denying them their democratic rights”, what the hell else do you expect officers will do?
They’ve just been clearly told, “you will not be independently investigated up until the point you actually shoot someone”. They’ve just been given the clear message, “we will cover your shit up, just pretend to be sorry and like it was all a big mistake.”
Cue Greg O’Connor any minute now to tell us how no police should ever have to wear badge numbers because how else are they meant to cow the sheeple into submission?
For some totally-anonymous-yet-still-somehow-authoritative commentary on the matter, check out the Dom Post’s editorial.
Men talking good shit about other men talking really shit shit
Another three guys-who-often-write-stuff-I-agree-with pretty much have it covered on the most recent outbreak of “Labour is low in the polls, let’s keep on trying to be National 2.0” fever.
Danyl on Pagani (but see this thread if somewhat-obscure boardgame references are your thing):
Pagani’s strategy – which Labour appears to be following – is to keep almost all of the members of the unpopular government the public was glad to get rid of, endorse National’s policies which are mostly horrible failures, and promote no substantial policy of their own. This has worked about as well as you’d expect it to.
When did the party of Savage, Kirk and Clark become such a pack of lambs?
Comrade Trotter of course attempts to blame Labour’s woes on it not being racist, sexist, and homophobic enough – which I think tells us more about Trotter’s prejudices than it does about Labour.
With a bonus I/S on Greg Thugface O’Connor:
And if O’Connor is truly representing his members on this, then I think we have a real problem in our police force.
Fear not, tiny readers, there shall be bona fide cuss-filled ranting aplenty coming at you over this approaching Easter break! But after weekend on weekend of weddings, houseguests, and getting really drunk with awesome feminists I’m a wee bit spent … in the mean time, you could always check out The Stroppery! /shamelessplug
Recommended reading: men talking good shit edition
A trifecta of good stuff for you this evening.
Craig Ranapia on Greg “if everyone would just be good little proles then the cops wouldn’t have to beat you” O’Connor and Tiki “brown man with completely inexplicable dislike of agents of repressive state apparatus” Taane:
But the one thing O’Connor and his ilk can’t do – and even worse, don’t believe they have to seriously try – is back up their assertion that words and music they don’t like lead to real world crime.
Gordon Campbell on both legal aid/the anti-nanny-state Government’s strange nanny-state-esque behaviour:
So far, the Key government has reduced the right to a jury trial, extended the powers of search and surveillance by state agencies, restricted the rights against self incrimination, sought the ability to conduct trials in the absence of the accused, and ended the independence of the agency dispensing legal aid – and that’s even before we got to today’s changes.
…
As Scoop consistently argued, the dispute was always about getting Warners more money, and the union dispute was being used as a diversion to that end. Simultaneously, the climate of anti-union hysteria did no harm to the ability of the government to get its rewrite of some key elements in our industrial legislation framework through Parliament.
Rob Salmond on the Labour list what-about-the-menz whining (h/t NRT):
What the graphs show is that Labour’s caucus will look broadly similar to New Zealand, but will continue to moderately underrepresent women, Maori, and New Zealanders of Asian descent. The Rainbow community is either marginally overrepresented (by about one MP) or represented proportionally, depending on which population estimate you prefer. And Pasifika peoples are overrepresented in Labour’s caucus by 1-2 MPs.
How could this possibly go wrong? Cops with guns / Greg O’Connor needs to fuck off edition
The horrendous attack on Senior Constable Bruce Mellor has conveniently been used as an excuse to call for wider arming of our police.
And God forbid our media actually subject this idea to basic logical analysis (even when the Police Commissioner himself seems to get it. Doesn’t stop him calling for more guns in cop cars though.)
So here it is, as simply as I can put it.
Scenario 1: Bruce Mellor has gun in lockbox in car. He doesn’t get it out because it’s a basic freaking traffic stop.
Bruce Mellor still gets attacked from behind by young thugs with a machete, Bruce Mellor still ends up in hospital.
Scenario 2: Bruce Mellor gets gun out of car for routine erratic-driving stop.
We now live in a South Africa-esque environment where cops treat every interaction with civilians as a potential gunfight. Young people who are randomly and viciously violent continue to be randomly and viciously violent towards lone cops.
Scenario 3: Bruce Mellor doesn’t pull his gun at every opportunity, but vicious youths in car are “more aware” that as a cop he may be armed.
Apparently this is the entire point of giving cops more access to guns. Congratulations, O’Connor, Broad and Collins, because in this one the attackers don’t reach for a machete, they get their own guns and shoot Bruce Mellor in the back.
Scenario 4: Greg O’Connor/Judith Collins fantasyland edition
Citizens are humbled by authority of mighty police force! Curfews for all! Bow before your uniformed gods lest they smite you down! Paradise on earth ensues, at least for smug white privileged people! New Zealanders “grow up” and just come to accept Police shootings so Greg O’Connor’s gun/authority-boner may be satisfied! Beatings shall continue until morale improves, and then having been demonstrated an effective morale-booster shall continue on! ALL HAIL GLORIOUS POLICE STATE OF AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND, LAND OF THE LONG WHITE PEPPER-SPRAY RESIDUE.
Ideologically Impure 