Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
OK, am I the only person who thinks we’re drawing a distinction without a difference here? What may be acceptable – or at least tolerated – in the animal kingdom of Melbourne gang-land doesn’t fly here. Ever. From nobody.
Nobody's talking of accepting or tolerating, merely suggesting that it might be more understandable coming from Aussie cops because we generally expect Kiwi cops to not behave like gang-land enforcers.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Karen Crisp,
Cops were from NZ, according to this.
Which makes it worse. We know that Aussie cops are thugs, and even though we'd expect their best behaviour when let out to play with others we'd still understand their confusion at being placed in a society that doesn't in any way condone the kinds of actions that're normal across the ditch. Kiwi cops have no excuse, and neither do the soldiers though I'll give them a pass on the grounds of not being law enforcers - I do hope, however, that NZDF finds out which unit it was and arranges for a very senior NCO to "talk" to them about the society in which they live.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Steve Parks,
Any failure to resolve a crime? Really? That’s a bit naive.
Not so much naive as overly idealistic. In much the same way as nzlemming rails against the police taking what are, in the circumstances, quite low-key measures to ensure they can respond to most eventualities promptly, blaming them for the society that requires this action, so I/S expects the police to be super-human, bereft of all human emotion or weakness, and then demands maximum punitive sanction when they fail to meet his impossible standards.
I/S, of course, adds the extra twist that any failure to meet those standards when chasing other cops who've not met those standards is systemic corruption, covering for its own, etc.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Idiot Savant,
For a start, there’s at least one witness – the victim.
The police investigate crimes. Its their job. Any failure to resolve a crime, to identify who is responsible and bring a case against them is, by definition, a failure on their part. And they think this too – that’s why they use resolution rates as their basic metric of success.
Yes, and victims' statements are always reliable, incontrovertible, and sound bases for a prosecution. Right?
How's that 100% success rate coming along for them?
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Andre Alessi,
Given that there is an eye witness involved (i.e. the alleged victim) and photographic evidence of what look like injuries from a beating, I don’t think that this case will hinge on cops dobbing each other in.
In the absence of an independent witness, the victim's statement and the evidence of injuries may not be enough. If the cop says "The arrest could only be effected with use of force", that's suddenly a very weak prosecution. It doesn't even have to be full-on resisting, it could just be a suggestion that Arie ran and had to be tackled. Whether or not it's true is irrelevant, the officer just has to assert it and suddenly it's the classic "he said/he said" that courts hate and which almost invariably goes in the officer's favour.
Challenging it would require Arie's team to engage a psychologist who could be qualified as an expert on ASD and then assert to the court's satisfaction that an Aspie would defer to an authority figure such as a police officer without question. -
Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Idiot Savant,
I expect the police to find that solid evidence. It is, to put it bluntly, their fucking job.
You mean like the solid evidence they found implicating Arthur Allan Thomas?
Seriously, listen to yourself. You are unwilling to entertain the slightest possibility that an investigation could, quite legitimately (on the part of the investigators), be unable to reach a conclusion that supports prosecution. You are demanding that the police do anything necessary to achieve a prosecution.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Idiot Savant,
Or that they’re incompetant. Neither is acceptable.
Or there's insufficient solid evidence to support prosecution. Which speaks not at all to the competence of the investigator(s), and everything to preserving the integrity of concepts such as due process and rule of law.
But that wouldn't support your narrative that only a prosecution is an acceptable outcome. -
Hard News: About Arie, in reply to giovanni tiso,
here’s hoping none of these guys were sworn here, aeh?
Of course they were.
Exactly. They were brought here to supplement the NZ Police resources available, so being sworn to give them the powers and protections of constables is entirely appropriate.
Of course they also brought the particular systemic dysfunctions that pervade their parent society, which includes corruption and brutality on a scale to make even Clint Rickards look like a saint. It's fortunate that, the AOS notwithstanding, we don't have armed cops patrolling Christchurch. If nzlemming finds Kiwi cops with guns scary, I hate to think what they'd make of armed Aussie cops on NZ streets.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Russell Brown,
technically, they are NZ cops.
That's pretty arguable. Being sworn to the office of constable doesn't make them NZ cops, it gives them the powers of NZ cops. They're still employed by their various parent police forces in Australia.
Otherwise the various special constables within the NZ legal landscape, such as Fire Police, are also "NZ cops" since they have all the legal status of a constable when acting in their official capacity.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to HORansome,
then it should be investigated. That’s not baying for blood; that’s requiring that the police live up to the standards we expect of them, standards that every officer knows are expected of them.
Expecting and demanding that it be investigated is one thing, and I will be very disappointed if there's no IPCA investigation.
Demanding prosecutions is prejudging the outcome of the investigation as determining who committed the assault with sufficient certainty to support such a prosecution. Which is a dangerous leap to make, since it leads one to conclude that the only possible explanation for there being no forthcoming prosecution is the Police covering for their own.