Posts by Matthew Poole
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Glenn, try reading this article or this one. Both say that a need to send in armed police contributed to the delay. Are you sure you actually looked beyond that one article?
Also, Singh died in hospital roughly 12 hours later. He wasn't DOA at hospital, or when the ambos finally got into the store. If he had been, you might be in a position to make such firm statements as "it's pretty clear the end result should have been better". But he wasn't, which makes it incredibly difficult to pontificate on what the outcome might have been. Leave that to the coroner, who will undoubtedly call on senior ED and HDU/ICU docs to contribute their educated opinions on whether or not the 30 minute delay was a significant contributing factor to Singh's death.DeepRed, that cartoon is brilliant. Best laugh I've had in a while.
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Arms race, anyone?
The criminal element in this country are under no illusions as to the availability of firearms to the police. The equipment available is well-known, given that the media reports every potential change to the armoury quite thoroughly.
An arms race might begin if the police were routinely armed, and organised criminals felt the need to prove a point, but the status quo has been the situation for quite a few years without any dramatic increase in the use of firearms against the police. There are a handful of incidents a year where guns are presented at cops, and fewer still where shots are actually fired. The last shooting death of a police officer was DC Taylor 2002. -
Glenn, if you read other reports, particularly the ones the day after the shooting, you will discover that the police had to wait for firearms to arrive before they made entry. What they may or may not have said about wanting to know the location of the perpetrator does nothing to detract from the fact that our primarily unarmed police were ill-equipped to enter a situation where a firearm had been used and the location of the shooter was unknown.
I realise it's hard to think of the cops as anything other than gutless, given the hard work of the Herald and portraying them as such, but do try and give them the benefit of the doubt. Also try reading some of my many posts on just why they would want guns in hand before approaching such a situation.
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I understand the theory behind the Police and Ambo's waiting at the "safe point" but at what point do they decide it's safe to enter the scene ?
Once they feel that they can deal adequately with the situation. Nothing to do with wanting certainty about where the perpetrator is, though that's nice, and everything to do with getting firearms to deal with a situation where shots have been fired. Like others, you seem to be looking at this with the misapprehension that the reason the police waited was to avoid having to face the gunman. That's bollocks. Our unarmed officers waited until a sergeant arrived and distributed firearms, and then they approached the scene. That's just plain sensible, especially when you've got no idea where the perpetrator is.
If a sergeant had been the first car on the scene, with another patrol right behind to ensure there were officers to approach the scene as well as others to provide backup, entry would've been made just as fast as they could suit up and get in there. The delay was in waiting for the firearms.Yes 30 minutes would've felt like forever for those inside. But that can't really be helped. Even five minutes would've passed as an eternity for those who were aiding Singh and calling for help. Without going through it all again, the emergency services are concerned with their own safety ahead of people already caught up in the incident to which they're responding.
Statistically, how often do the robbers hang around in this scenario after shooting someone ?
Utterly irrelevant. Shots were fired, therefore there was someone around who was quite happy to use a firearm in a built-up area. That completely exonerates caution on the part of the police, and justifies any decision to want to be armed before going inside.
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I'm sorry, isn't not relying on the police exactly the point you've been trying to convince me of for the last day or two?
No! I'm trying to convince you not to expect immediate rescue, not that they won't come at all. Two completely different states of affairs.
In one, you're on your own forever, constantly responsible for your own safety and survival. In the other you're merely asked to keep your expectations a little bit realistic, instead of believing that whenever you call 111 the <insert emergency service> will come charging through the door just as fast as they can get to your place.I expect the police/fire service/ambulance services to respond, and try to help me, if I get into strife. But if there's a gunman of unknown location involved, or power lines, or a sod-off big pile of bricks, I know that it might be more than five minutes before someone in uniform is at my side.
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My email to Kerre Woodham about her colum last Sunday will be published as a letter-to-the-editor in the coming HoS. Will be interesting to see how badly they slash it. For posterity, here it is in its unedited glory.
Hi Kerre
I just wanted to thank you for your column about the response to the Manurewa shooting. I'm not associated with the Police, but it infuriates me how quickly the media (especially the Herald, unfortunately) jump on them for the slightest possible scandal.
When a columnist such as yourself calls their publishing paper on such behaviour, it is a beautiful thing to see. People such as myself are easily ignored, but you're an extension of the paper and thus carry more weight.
Your closing paragraph, about the message that is sent by reactions such as the one we're seeing, was brilliant. Police officers have as much right to expect to go home at the end of their shift as any other worker, but that is given scant recognition by the jerking knees of hysterical response to tragedies such as this.
Thank you, again, for voicing something that I'm sure many people feel but are unable to adequately communicate.
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Whether it's allowed under police policy or not, I'm sure a fair few rural police officers would have a shotgun or other weapon in their vehicle - either a police one or a personal one. As much use for dealing with livestock, animals etc, as any risk from an armed offender.
You're probably right that they'll have a weapon in the car. It'll be police-issue, no doubt, because the top-heavy bureaucratic hell that would descend on an officer who used their own firearm in the course of their duties really doesn't bear contemplation. But even if you've got one of the Bushmasters in your hand, you're still on your own in the middle of nowhere. Rural coppers don't patrol in pairs, they're often in a sole-charge station or at best it's them and a couple of others to cover all of the area and duties. That makes the time to backup all that more crucial. They can intervene if a threat materialises in front of them, but they're not going to go looking for trouble while it's just them and help's still a long way off.
The AOS might come in by helicopter from wherever it is they're based, but they have to assemble, draw kit, and get to a helipad before that's an option. The cavalry's bearing down on your location at the speed of a crippled tortoise, not an F1 car. -
the Police were right to wait until they were certain he'd left
That's not why they waited. They waited until they had firearms, in case he hadn't left. Your misrepresentation of the circumstances does nothing to aid your argument.
Their concern was not so great that they wouldn't risk confronting a gunman at all, it was that they wouldn't risk confronting a gunman while unarmed themselves. Is that such an objectionable position? -
is there a particular reason why I shouldn't be somewhat curious about why the police would advocate reliance on them in the first place.
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And no, Shep, I'm not advocating some sort of wild west, so you can relax.But if you're saying people shouldn't rely on the police, then what are you advocating? The police say "Don't take the law into your own hands" because the only alternative is the "wild west." It's an LA, where every shopkeeper has a loaded 12-gauge under the counter and some kind of assault rifle in the office. That's the alternative to letting the police say "Rely on us."
I guess I should lower my expectations, and focus more on how to try to take care of myself and making damn sure to stay away from potentially dangerous situations now that my illusions have been dispelled.
Given that you live in Wellington, you'd better move. If you're caught in a collapsed building when the big one hits, the people who come to get you won't hesitate for a second to get off the pile if their safety is endangered. The Urban Search and Rescue task force personnel here go through a three-week, full-time training course just to become a TF Technician. They train regularly, for precisely that kind of event. And for damned sure they'll look out for numero uno above all. The USAR techs who will come from overseas are trained equally thoroughly, and will have precisely the same mindset.
It's not just the police who will stand away from a dangerous situation if the risk to themselves is too high. It's anyone who's got training to help in a dangerous situation.I suspect those perspectives will probably conflict regardless of how much we discuss them. I'm happy to park that part of the discussion if you are.
You're probably right. I first heard the "me first" message over half my lifetime ago, and it's so thoroughly ingrained that trying to think any other way is incredibly difficult. Dozens of exercises and first aid competitions just bedded it in further, particularly when the notional safety of my team members was in my hands as the team leader.
We'll have to agree to disagree, because neither of us is going to easily see the other's perspective. I still think you should take a first aid course, though. Especially with your new attitude of self-reliance :) -
Surely the point is that the safety of attending officers must be balanced against the safety of the victims of the situation.
Oh, of course. But the scales are very heavily tilted toward the safety of the officers. In a big-city environment, where firearms-equipped cars aren't too far away and the AOS can be on-scene in an hour, the loading is even greater. In the wops, where it might be two hours to the nearest town of any importance and the AOS comes from somewhere that's further away still, the balance will be a little different but still heavily tilted.
As Russell pointed out a couple of pages back, the time from first call to the scene being declared "secure" was 31 minutes, from first call to entry was 26 minutes. That's not even close to a lack of balance of concern for the safety of the injured person - particularly since entry was made 11 minutes after confirmation was received that someone had been shot. If you've got firearms five minutes away (if that) when you find out someone's been shot, why would you suddenly rush into a situation? It's five minutes, and then you've got the equipment to deal with a potential gunman. I say five minutes because issue of firearms takes time, as does putting on vests and moving up from the SFP. It's entirely possible that firearms were arriving at the scene at the time that it was confirmed that there was a victim.