Posts by Matthew Poole
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How about get the neighbours watching away ,stand back from the tantrum and wait for back up to reassess?Check out if there is any history, find if mental health issues and if professional in that area are available,have a cop (maybe a detective detecting)checking if next of kin can be located for info?
How long do you think they had?!?! What you're suggesting is appropriate for a siege situation, where the police have the subject contained, but this wasn't that. It was an armed man out in public. How are they meant to stop him from running down the road and into someone's house? TV3's camera arrived in time to capture the shooting, which would make it about 15 minutes, maybe less, from the time that it was determined that an armed response would be required to the time of the shooting. It's not far from the CBD to Point Chev, and the newsrooms monitor police channels to listen for breaking stories.
At some point, and in a very fluid, dynamic situation such as this seems to have been it's a rapidly-arising point, the police have to decide that the subject can go so far, and no further. Evacuating the neighbours is all well and good, but you need to keep them safe while they're being evacuated. That means you have to be prepared to use force. From what the senior police officer said to the media last night, the general duties officers who initially responded had withdrawn to a location from which they could observe the property and were then confronted. They couldn't leave him to go rampaging down the street, and it was obvious from the outcome that he wasn't going to just stay in his house until the AOS could arrive and surround him.
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and our solution is fast becoming shoot to kill (in the chest is kill)
No, in the chest is disable. Police policy is, and always has been, shoot to stop. Shoot to wound is Hollywood bullshit, and has no place on real streets, with real cops using real guns to fire real bullets at real criminals, and with the real potential for a real miss that injures a real innocent bystander.
The largest mass is the torso, and that's the only part of the body at which a shot should be aimed by a police officer who's not a sniper, with a sniper rifle, lying in a sniper perch. Anywhere else is easily missed, and may well not incapacitate the target. Once lethal force is justified, the intent should be to neutralise the threat as immediately as possible. That means the largest part of the body in order to achieve maximum disabling effect. It's an unfortunate side-effect that this is frequently fatal, but death is not what the police set out to cause. -
What did you want the police to do, get into a knife fight?
Maybe Sofie's thinking a big group hug? She alluded to there being a large number of officers present.
Personally, I have no problems with the police using firearms in this situation. Even with the availability of Tasers I still don't have a problem with it, and wouldn't have had even if a Taser had been present. Knives are lethal weapons, and I don't expect the police to put themselves in danger just because it might offend the delicate sensibilities of some segments of society when lethal force is used to neutralise a lethal threat. I don't take the view that it's only appropriate to use firearms in response to firearms, and that any lesser weapon should be dealt to with group hugs and singing round the camp fire.
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With Mokaraka, he presented a threat to life. The use of lethal force is entirely justified. An ordinary person, faced with someone waving knives and a meat cleaver, would very likely consider their life to be in imminent danger.
And, if said ordinary person shot the person
They would very likely not be charged with attempted murder/murder, and if they were they'd have a very good chance of getting off on self-defence. They may have to answer questions about why they had a loaded firearm in that situation, but that's a different story. There is direct precedent with Greg Carvell, who was not charged with any kind of violence offence for shooting a knife-wielding man who was terrorising his gun shop.
Please don't try and argue that the police should be held to the same restrictions as the general public. We employ them and give them powers to do things so that the general public don't have to! They were in that situation because of their job. Do you now wish them to be denied greater access to protective measures at the same time as demanding that they "do something" about these situations? In that case, why bother having police at all?
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Most people seem to think violence can be a legitimate resort when defending oneself or others from violence or threatened violence.
Precisely. Defence of self or another from an immediate threat to life is not an unreasonable circumstance in which to use violence, assuming the violence used is commensurate to the violence presented. It would also not result in the use of the provocation defence if it ended up in court.
With Mokaraka, he presented a threat to life. The use of lethal force is entirely justified. An ordinary person, faced with someone waving knives and a meat cleaver, would very likely consider their life to be in imminent danger. -
Strange that they were waiting for a Taser and a qualified operator when it went down. I was under the misguided impression that...I don't know... just point and shoot, point and shoot.
Not entirely sure what you're trying to say here, but the NZ Police aren't known for being trigger-happy. In 150 years of policing they've killed fewer than 30 (25?) people. If they can avoid having to use firearms, they'll take the option. But, in this case, absent a Taser there's no other credible choice.
Pepper spray has an effective range of a metre, or less, which is far too close for comfort to a person armed with a weapon that could take your hand off. Batons? Again, you're inside slashing/stabbing range before you can really use them, and if you screw up deflecting a rush you've probably now got a serious injury. -
Craig, to be fair, the media are the ones who've played up the "waiting for a Taser" angle. I saw that before I saw any comment from the Police Association. And, unlike O'Connor, the person who has commented admits that a Taser may not have been useful for this incident. He did make the point, entirely validly, that it would've given another option for consideration.
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Off slightly but relevant, the police seem to think so.I'd hate for my child to have a tantrum in the wrong place.Anything can now be considered a weapon.One man and a meat cleaver, bunch of cops, just aim and shoot. Sorted.But, but, he had a knife.
Sofie, pray, tell, do you not consider a knife or meat cleaver to be a weapon? Really? The man was armed. The police shot a man who was armed with weapons perfectly capable of killing a person. Didn't Mister Weatherston, the founding topic of this thread, use a knife and scissors to murder and mutilate his ex girlfriend?
Do you really, seriously, have a problem with the police using firearms in response to a person who's armed with lethal weapons? This wasn't a kid with a pocket knife, this was a grown man with real knives and a cleaver. Who was, no doubt, told that the cops were armed and would shoot him if he didn't stop.
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One of the best quotes from 60 MInutes, near the end of the Ambach segment, was the one on what provocation says about our society. I missed seeing who the man was, but his words should be printed out in large font, on A0 paper, and plastered all over the House.
For those who missed it, paraphrased horribly (and the episode isn't yet up on TV3's website, so I can't transcribe), he said that the very existence of the defence of provocation says that society considers violence, in certain circumstances, to be a reasonable response. After all, it is how a "reasonable" person would respond, is it not?
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Now that I've done my best attempt at a neutral position, I'll say that I'm with Sacha. I'm sure I could find instances of Labour spinning things in ways that run counter to the report writer's stated aims, and I probably wouldn't have to go back terribly far in time to locate them, but $15b/year is a whole lot of shit.