Island Life: The Guilt of Clayton Weatherston
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Matthew, I don't do group hugs or camp fires or singing.Try again :)
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Taser is electrocuting. don't see that as between.
Taser is designed to be non-lethal, and meets that design in most situations. Yes, some tasered people have died, but it is infrequent and rare, as opposed to shooting in the chest, which is frequently if not mostly fatal.
Do I want to be tasered? No.
Would I prefer to be tasered than shot? Um-yes please.Dont want to be tasered or shot? Dont advance towards the police with a cleaver would be good advise, I think.
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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what the senior police officer said to the media last night, the general duties officers who initially responded had withdrawn to a location from which they could observe the property and were then confronted.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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How long do you think they had?!?!
Ok, I'll go away, you are scaring me now. ;)
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Taser is electrocuting.don't see that as between.
I don't think you know what "electrocuting" means.
still think we can do better.
Maybe, in general, but based on what we know at this point about this particular incident, the police seemed to have acted reasonably.
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Sofie, I'm not trying to scare you. I'm simply trying to dissuade you from judging the police against the yardstick of 24 hours of contemplation, and explain that these situations normally occur in a matter of minutes. The solutions you think you can see days after the event are, often, impossible or impractical for a small number of non-specialist police officers to implement on the street.
Most police shootings in this country are by general duties officers, not armed specialists such as the AOS or the Special Tactics Group. The recent shooting in Christchurch was rather unusual in that it was the AOS who fired the fatal rounds. Normally things unfold so fast that, if there's time to request them at all, the AOS are still mustering prior to deployment. That says that the available options are few because there are insufficient officers present and armed to try and contain the subject until the other things you suggest, such as getting background information from family or getting a psychologist to try and talk to the subject, can be carried out. When the safety of the general public is their paramount concern, the police will not let an armed threat wander around public spaces. Bad enough to have to shoot someone who is armed, but far, far worse to have that person injure an innocent member of the public.As an example, and without rehashing the event, I believe it was 64 seconds from the time that Abbott first called out to Wallace to the time that he opened fire. The entire incident from the time that the police were first notified of the smashing of windows to the time that Wallace was shot was less than an hour.
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I'm simply trying to dissuade you from judging the police against the yardstick of 24 hours of contemplation..
Yes I'm aware but perhaps you are not aware that I would expect scrutiny of any behaviour where a person is shot.As I said, if suicide, understandable, but to shoot , I believe, is accepting to kill. I know the police are not perfect (I just know) therefore they also should be scrutinised as any other person has to be.
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Yes I'm aware but perhaps you are not aware that I would expect scrutiny of any behaviour where a person is shot.As I said, if suicide, understandable, but to shoot , I believe, is accepting to kill. I know the police are not perfect (I just know) therefore they also should be scrutinised as any other person has to be.
There's always a PCA investigation of any police use of firearms (or police involved in car accidents etc).
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There's always a PCA investigation of any police use of firearms (or police involved in car accidents etc).
Not one that we seem to hear anything about, including who (AOS).Even complaints from public go through without reason as to it's outcome, and I mean to the complainant.It feels a bit too incestuous and intimidating to me and I don't have an issue with dealing with cops but many do.Still don't think "Police know best" is winning any trust here.In trying to assess my view of tasers, I found some pretty horrible actions on behalf of police who are all armed with these things and I consider it electrocution. I am told I don't know what that is. Well, each to their own view so I'll leave it there.
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Not one that we seem to hear anything about, including who (AOS).
Try here. See, for example, their explanation of why they won't investigate the death of Jan Molenaar (he shot himself).
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The Government denied leave last Thursday for Lianne Dalziel's private members bill to repeal the provocation defence: she sought leave at the earliest opportunity after the Weatherston verdict. She and Chauvel had purposefully kept silent (including not putting the bill in the ballot) during the two high-profile trials.
In an exquisite touch of poetic justice at 12 o'clock today, her Crimes (Abolition of Defence of Provocation) Amendment Bill was selected from the ballot.
It will soon be debated on Members Day.
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Try here. See, for example, their explanation of why they won't investigate the death of Jan Molenaar (he shot himself).
Thanks Kyle but we dont get much detail. Do the family get the full report? It certainly is better than police investigating themselves like the good ol' days.
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Well in that instance there isn't a report.
But complainants and other parties get copies of reports, yes.
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I think you might find, as well, that this particular young man seems to have set the situation up, from all accounts. What on earth was he thinking, if this is the case?
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Sofie, just because the reports aren't released to the general public doesn't mean that there's not a thorough investigation. Rarely is the release of a report justified on the grounds of "in the public interest." It may well be something in which the public is interested, but that's not the same thing. The public is also interested, at least according to the low standards of the tabloids, in what Britney (doesn't) wear under her dress when she goes clubbing, but you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who considers it to be in the public's interest to know. Would we be done some great injustice by not knowing?
With police use of firearms, there is a great risk that the release of every report would put at risk more lives because officers would be wondering "If I pull the trigger right now, am I going to be subjected to endless criticism by the great unwashed, who, having been fed cherry-picked snippets of the final report by sensationalist media, believe that they could've handled this differently?" It is very definitely not in the best interests of public safety to put that question into their minds.
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I think you might find, as well, that this particular young man seems to have set the situation up, from all accounts. What on earth was he thinking, if this is the case?
So says the ubiguitous "they" via the cherry picked snippets of sensationalist info going out to the public although probably not in the best interest of educating the public about what a difficult job the cops are up against ;)
Matthew, we are adults and the public should be educated which Kyle just showed that some does exist.Because I know an ex cop, I have the privilege of asking him questions if I so want but there is alot that don't and consequently majority are left to rely on the likes of O'Connor and that is plainly wrong, which imho has tainted their image. -
Oh and also cops don't need protection from themselves. They are professional aren't they?I am sure along with many other personal queries they may have, they can handle this consideration in training, just so they wont question their ability to do their job.
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Provocation will be scrapped by a government bill. So Weatherston's obnoxious performance has turned out to be good for something after all.
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Provocation will be scrapped by a government bill. So Weatherston's obnoxious performance has turned out to be good for something after all.
And like Idiot/Savant, I'm pretty pleased that its going to be done through a government bill. Don't give a fig who "gets the credit" -- or that so many people only gave a damn when a straight white middle-class young woman was the victim of posthumous character assassination -- as long as provocation ends up in the landfill of history where it belongs.
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I also stopped reading the papers and watching the news; I was incensed that it was always referred to as 'Weatherston's murder trial' - when it was Sophie who was murdered, the media should have used her name, whenever they could, not his - it felt like complete misogyny!
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I also stopped reading the papers and watching the news; I was incensed that it was always referred to as 'Weatherston's murder trial' - when it was Sophie who was murdered, the media should have used her name, whenever they could, not his - it felt like complete misogyny!
Michelle: To be fair, he was the one on trial not Elliot -- though you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. :)
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Reading between the lines in this piece from Greg King, it seems fairly clear from this from whence the provocation defence arose.
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And this piece shows a completely different side of the issue - I'm pretty amazed the ODT published it, not really their sort of thing ....wow!
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And this piece shows a completely different side of the issue - I'm pretty amazed the ODT published it, not really their sort of thing ....wow!
Indeed. well written and shit ....straight to the guts of it really.
"When everyone hears my side of the story I'll be vindicated, don't worry, Mum," he said.
Well that explains what I had suspected, and interesting it was his birthday.
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yeah - my reaction to it was sort of - "wait this isn't Public Address" - that piece of writing would not be out of place as a guest piece here
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