Posts by Matthew Poole
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oh and on a side note, personally I think the response time to get the area cordoned off and the AOS on site was pretty bloody good......
Not AOS, just the nearest GD sergeant. Doubtless AOS were paged, but I've seen nothing to suggest that they actually went in and cleared the place. If it was actually AOS, the Otahuhu incident would've helped dramatically.
As for traffic, it was late on a weekend night. Auckland's not a 24/7 parking lot, y'know :P
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Also Matthew, Xues car should have been seized and removed from the street at the same time as the searching of house,
For whatever reason, it took them as long as it did to work out that it was his car. Slack police work on their part, not running the plates of a car parked in front of the house, but it does happen. They also didn't know they were investigating anything other than a dumped child for a while.
It was sloppy, but it happened, and because they went through the legal processes they can use the evidence gathered from the car. Had they not, it'd all be worthless and the case would be rather more difficult since it's hard to prove murder when you can't talk about the situation of the body.
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Can't have it both ways, people
Yes I can
No, you can't. If you're going to criticise them for waiting, you'd have to commend them for rushing in and getting shot if that was how it went down. Otherwise you're demanding that the police exercise perfect judgement in every situation, never err, and always be completely exonerated by the 20/20 hindsight that will be applied to any situation that isn't resolved to the utmost satisfaction of the inquisitor.
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past Xues car in our street with his wife in the boot while the cop was on duty beside it and many onlookers in the street were suggesting the boot might be better than digging up the garden.
And if the police had just opened up the boot because it seemed like a good idea, nothing they found in the car would be admissible in the up-coming trial. Nothing, nadda, zilch. They have procedures around searches for a reason, and it's so that the likes of Chris Comesky can't get evidence turfed on a technicality. The law is there for a reason, and failure to follow the law will be countenanced by the courts in very few circumstances. If there had been knocking or yelling from the boot, forced entry would've been permitted as necessary to preserve life. The courts accept that, and nobody's going to second-guess a cop who hauls someone alive from a car boot. In Xue's case, that didn't happen.
if he is shot,bleeding,and I am there saying it is safe,it is their duty to serve and protect.
And if you're wrong? If they're actually just around the corner, or in the car park, waiting for a chance to cap some pigs? Who's to blame then? You? No, don't think so. The blame will fall squarely on the cops who went into a risky situation without ensuring that they could deal with foreseeable circumstances. Would you be calling them gung-ho idiots in that situation? I would be. I'm being perfectly even-handed here, but I wonder how many of the people currently saying they should've gone in faster would be saying they should've waited if things had gone south. Can't have it both ways, people, you're on one side or the other.
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Ah yes, that perhaps explains why our soldiers are now only fit for peacekeeping duties. Or performing the Haka for Laura Bush in Afghanistan.
If they go to war, they've got guns. If they get shot, it's not because they were sent into a dangerous situation without a means to defend themselves. Even our peace-keepers have rules-of-engagement that permit them to exercise lethal force if required. It's disingenuous to compare the military to civilians.
I think it reasonable to accept the families assurances that the criminals have gone, and to enter the building with due caution.
And if the family's wrong? Then what? Suddenly you've got a bunch of dead or badly injured cops because they couldn't respond to force with like force. "Due caution" means being able to deal with a many reasonably-foreseeable events as possible, and when someone's been shot that includes the possibility that there's someone with a gun very nearby.
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If I'm out in the wops and crash, I could reasonably have an idea that it might take some time for emergency services to get to me.
Then read my first post to this discussion. Where I talk about a real incident where the Fire Service waited an hour for it to be confirmed that power was off in the sector. They weren't taking their time to get there, they were there and standing around. They could see the driver, and had the driver been conscious (or even alive) they would've been able to see the fire fighters. It's an exactly equivalent circumstance. Are you going to castigate the fire fighters in that situation for waiting? If you are, I'll find out exactly which brigade it was and you can go there on a Monday night and tell them that they're a bunch of cowards. I'd love to know their reaction.
I'm expressing the view that someone who died, might rightly have expected some help.
And the way you're saying it says that you object to the police taking the time to ensure that they could render aid as safely as possible in the circumstances. By saying that they took too long, and should've gone in straight away, you're saying that the fact that someone had been shot should be ignored and they should haved immediately entered the premises.
By extension you're saying that they're less entitled to expect to go home at the end of their shift, because you're denying that they have any right to examine the entire circumstances and take steps to minimise the risks to themselves. -
I'd always been told all sworn officers, who were current (had done training) could draw firearms. The decison to approve use of firearms rests with shift supervisor.
Correct. A senior sergeant or detective sergeant can authorise carrying of firearms for a shift by their subordinates. In extreme circumstances, as was seen in the Hawkes Bay after the McKibbin shooting, a regional commander can authorise blanket arming of officers for an extended period.
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If the police aren't going to come to peoples rescue, could they do the populace the courtesy of admitting that, and tell them they're on their own?
Should the Fire Service tell people that if they happen to crash into a power pole out in the wops, they're on their own potentially for an hour? Maybe the various ambulance services should tell people that if they get shot they're on their own? Coz there's no ambo in existence who's going to attend to a person who's been shot in a robbery if the cops are telling them not to go in.
You're expressing precisely the view that Kerre described. Somehow people in uniform are lesser beings than you, less worthy of life, with a subordinate right to go home at the end of the working day just because they've got a uniform on and a duty to help the public.
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Because best practice is to restrict firearms use to a specially trained and selected cadre with the skills for such situations.
That's not how it works here, though. All police officers are trained (woefully. They wouldn't qualify to keep a private pistol licence on their current level of training) how to handle firearms. We're not the UK, where only selected officers get firearms training. To be sure the AOS are trained far better than the average plod, but they're not the only cops who have access to firearms where required.
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Why aren't all cars carrying firearms if some are?
Good question. Partly it's because we do still live under the illusion that we've an unarmed police force, I suspect. Sergeants' cars (the station wagons) all have an arsenal in the boot, and they're the usual source of firearms at an incident. All marked cars (dunno about unmarked ones) have a lock-box at the front passenger's feet, which can accommodate a couple of pistols and ammunition. Mostly they're empty, but in South Auckland the night patrols often have a "friend" with them - in the box, not on their hip.
In reality, most police officers in most parts of the country don't need to have a firearm immediately available. That South Auckland night patrols frequently carry is a reflection of what that area has become, more than indicative of wider society. However, even they don't take their pistols every time they exit the car. Things haven't quite reached that stage.