Serious question about police resources and equipment

[PrincessBandit]

If someone shoots a police officer and the evidence is clear, they deserve execution.

Have you lot seen starship troopers?
In one part a news report proudly announces that a man has been caught after committing murder, he was charged, tried and found guilty within a 24-hour period and his execution is scheduled for later that day, to be broadcast on all channels.

I want to see this happen. Shoot a police officer, you will die.
Deterrent much?

Starship troopers! yeah - I love the scene where the bug sucks his brain out. Perhaps they could do that to execute cop murderers. (But then there could be some difficulty locating the actual brain material of some)

[HenryDorsetCase]

I'm not sure that quoting Starship Troopers in your submission to the Lor and Order select committee in ParliAment is the way to get taken seriously in your submission.

Just saying.

Though it is a very funny film, I like it a lot.

Here is an interesting bit of trivia: in the well-known documentary series Firefly, the Alliance (bad guy police in the 'verse) wear body armor that looks suspiciously like that from Starship Troopers. It was because the production company hired the props from the studio that owned Starship Troopers.

Also they had cool laser cannons n shit.

[Patrick]

Interesting that the cops that were shot at yesterday, did in fact have access to a gun but chose not to. A member of the public was killed by a stray bullet fired by a cop on the North Western Motorway last year? Leave it to the AOS, thats what they are there for. Cops being shot while on duty is a very rare thing. Napier last year being the exception.

Glenn MCKIBBIN
Duncan TAYLOR
Don WILKINSON
Len SNEE

And these are the more recent ones.

There are plenty more. 17 before that..... and that is just the shootings....

"Very rare to be shot on duty?"

That can be a Tui Billboard.

Good one!

[Maha]

Glenn MCKIBBIN
Duncan TAYLOR
Don WILKINSON
Len SNEE

And these are the more recent ones.

There are plenty more. 17 before that..... and that is just the shootings....

"Very rare to be shot on duty?"

That can be a Tui Billboard.

Good one!

The rate is very low considering the Police/Public contact on a hourly basis.
Not acceptable at any level but given the contact between good and evil, it not a bad run rate.

[Banditbandit]

If the crime problem is as bad as people make out, surely it makes sense to put the army on the streets, a la, Belfast.
A lot of criminals could be wiped out in a few days. Let's face it, most of them stick out sore thumbs. Shoot them on site..

You're kidding me .. How do they stickout like sore thumbs? Wearing black leathers and riding large motorcycles maybe?

[Banditbandit]

Lol, talk dirty like that to me baby and I'll be telling you to slap on the lip chap and get on your knees....... (not sure if you've been around long enough to get what I mean, but you can always ask miloking).

What's the lip chap for? Sounds kinky ...

[Banditbandit]

If someone shoots a police officer and the evidence is clear, they deserve execution.

Have you lot seen starship troopers?
In one part a news report proudly announces that a man has been caught after committing murder, he was charged, tried and found guilty within a 24-hour period and his execution is scheduled for later that day, to be broadcast on all channels.

I want to see this happen. Shoot a police officer, you will die.
Deterrent much?

No deterent at all .. removes the problem .. I'm all in favour of that .. but don't confuse that with deterent sentences ... the deth penalty in America has not reduced the murder rate ...

[Banditbandit]

Yep we can all take little bits of someones post and make them sound like anything we want.

So what is your option to fix this?

if your not a cop or have non in the family then i can understand the way you feel, but if you do then you would know what it is like to hear on the radio that another cop has been assaulted/killed and spend the next few minute trying to find out who/where.

If your not a wimping liberal then i will say sorry for calling you one but thats what you are sounding like.

Hmmm .. we have a very serious problem of vilence at all levels of society, and police getting shot is one symptom of that. It's not acceptable, and I believe cop killers and other murderers (not all, but some) should get the death sentence - happy to pull the trigger myself ... and a bullet into the central cortex is the most humane, efficent and cost effective execution method .. instant, painless and costs just over $1 a kill ...

But meeting violence with violence is not the answer. It's what the US does, and it's a solution which is not working. They have more people in jails than NZ .. more cops are killed each week than NZ ... there are more murders per week than NZ ... just across the boarder in Canada there is a very low rate of murders and cop killings with just as heavily armed a population as NZ and the US , in Britain agian, a low rate of murder and cop killings ... no readily armed police with gklocks on hips ... why do we look to the failing US response, ratrher than the working Canadian or British or other European resposes? Are we so attached to ffollowing the US - in both rising crime and responses - that we can'tr see any other way expect violence? That's the problem right there.

Now, we have created a criminal underclass in this country that si prepared to use violence - against fellow citizens and police - I'm horrified at the generation folloiwng my own. In rebelling against our parents and demanding more freedm, then giving it to our kids we have created a monster ...

Once people become hard core crims it is very difficult to change that - lock them up ... execute them if necessary - but don't see it as a deterent. It never was and it never will be - it's a protective measure only. We have ncreased sentecnes, increased the numbers in jail, but the problem is not going away ... that response is not working . Once in prison we can change the ones we can. At present repeat offending rates are a lot lower than you might think. The repeat incaceration rate for first time offenders is very very low, but the repeat offenders continue to repeat and repeat .. which says that there is a high sucess rate with people put in jail, but the failures are failures for every ...

So we have a group of people in society for whom it is too late - basically we should lock them upand throw away the key ...

However, we need to stop creating criminals ... and there are many factiors which create crims ..poverty - poor educational achievement, poor housing, bad parents (especially crims as parents) ... do you ever think about the children of the people you want to drop in jail? How angry do you think a six year old boy becomes if his father is locked in jail? Where does that anger go? How does the family support itself if father is in jail? On the DPB? Growing up in a single parent famioly on the DPB is a majro risk factor for a child to become a crim. How many potential future crims have been creating by putting fathers in jail? If we want to put them in jail, what do we do about the faimly? Nothing of course - we leave them on the DPB to grow future crims !

Education is a good answer .. give people hope and a future, they will not beconme crims .. that's a long term solution and won't stop the killing of a cop next week .. but will in 10 to 15 years ...

Caring about each other will go along way to help ... Many people were upset when four-year-old James Whakaruru was murdered by his step father in 1999. But what did the community do? Many ases of child abuse - neighbors, friends, family, must know what is happening and do nothing!

At the same time as James died, everyone weanted to blood of Taffy Hotene who raped and murdered Kylie Jones the same year. Taffy Hotene was a James Whakaruru grown up - he grw up in a totally abusive family, went to school hungrry and covered in bruises - he was lucky to survive to adulthood. So how can we feel sorry for the four year old and condemn the grown up man? What would James Whakaruru have beocme if he had lived? Tffy Hotene, Paul Dally Rufus Marsh?

Well, I think Hotene deserved the death penatly - too late for him ..... (and he died in prison last year) But it's not too late for the other four year old Taffy Hotenes and James Whakarurus ...

What are YOU prepaeed to do for them? Just sit back and call them crims that stick out like a sore thumb? Hate them they way they will hate you ? Demand more violence against their families?

No wonder they hate us and will shoot us at the drop of a hat ... I've lived with them and been in their head space ... I've never hated enough to pull a gun, but atttude-wise, I've come close ...

Violence wil only be meet with violence, and a growing war and arms race - that path is a no-win one!


Jeez .. that's a bit of tirade ...

[Patrick]

The rate is very low considering the Police/Public contact on a hourly basis.
Not acceptable at any level but given the contact between good and evil, it not a bad run rate.

That is ONLY the dead ones.

I wasn't even talking about those who have been shot and recover......

I bet the bad guys run rate is better.......... excluding Mr HALITAU of course, as he wasn't a bad guy at all.....

[SPman]

Violence is not increasing appreciably at all - media reporting of violence is! Usually at the expense of more important news, like who's currently raping the country! The old story of - If it bleeds, it leads, is all too apparent in NZ (and other countries) main stream media!
In 2004/5 there were 37 assaults with firearms, in 1996/97 there were 36. In between its gone up and down, sometimes dropping to as low as 13, more usually hovering around 30.
The police have more than adequate powers and generally have firearms available when needed. We have to think - do we want a quasi-military style police force with "compliance policing" - ie "do what I say or I'll shoot you", a police force everyone fears and police strut around exuding an air of aggression....like a lot of the cops over here do. Not all, but enough to give you a dirty taste in your mouth and a desire to give them the least help possible! .
I think you would find, most NZ police would have no desire to be armed.
How about more training in the classic manouvre of intelligent defusing of potentially explosive situations - OK - it won't work in a situation where a person is off their nut and going to shoot, anyway ..Aramoana, etc - nothing works in those situations and, regardless of whether police are armed or not, there will always be those situations and there are procedures in place to deal with those sorts of scenarios as they occur, but, arming of the police will not be of any use in a surprise attack situation like the one that just occured.
The only weapon of any use would have been more training in situational awareness. Police bursting in with weapons drawn is not good policing, it is an invitation to more disasters, which the media and vested interests will use to further their own ends - and it's not the safety of the public!

[Patrick]

....Cop shot a motorcyclist in the spine during a routine traffic stop and paralyzed him. Reason? "I thought he had a weapon on him". There's a video, if you watch it, you can see clearly no attempt was made to reach for any weapon:

Pulling the right hand back like he did made it look a bit like he was reaching for one.... but that cop had plenty of options before firing......IMHO......

I htink this was more about telling the rider, in a forceful way, "Dang... I tells ya'all that Harleys can't corner." It is even in the video....

[Patrick]

Violence is not increasing appreciably at all - media reporting of violence is! Usually at the expense of more important news, like who's currently raping the country! The old story of - If it bleeds, it leads, is all too apparent in NZ (and other countries) main stream media!
In 2004/5 there were 37 assaults with firearms, in 1996/97 there were 36. In between its gone up and down, sometimes dropping to as low as 13, more usually hovering around 30.

5 to 6 year old stats... helpful... NOT!!!

I think you would find, most NZ police would have no desire to be armed.

I think you might be right.....

How about more training in the classic manouvre of intelligent defusing of potentially explosive situations - ........!

Like that doesn't already happen? These ones don't make the news. They happen all the time.

[Dave Lobster]

You're kidding me .. How do they stickout like sore thumbs? Wearing black leathers and riding large motorcycles maybe?

They wear gang patches.

[george formby]

I have friends in the Police & everyday they put their arses on the line dealing with low lifes we know nothing about. Shootings like this are a kick in the guts for their family watching mum or dad go to work. The media, as usual, has created an OMG! situation on a very limited amount of released information.
The Feds deserve investment in training & equipment to make them as safe & effective as possible.
Putting a few thousand more guns on the street doe's not strike me as a quick fix, just more bullets flying around.
Let officers on the street who have received that investment make the decision about what they need.

They can make a rational decision on what is considered inappropriate speed for the conditions too if the traffic fine quota stops affecting their funding.
Sorry off topic.

[HenryDorsetCase]

Hmmm .. we have a very serious problem of vilence at all levels of society, and police getting shot is one symptom of that. It's not acceptable, and I believe cop killers and other murderers (not all, but some) should get the death sentence - happy to pull the trigger myself ... and a bullet into the central cortex is the most humane, efficent and cost effective execution method .. instant, painless and costs just over $1 a kill ...

But meeting violence with violence is not the answer. It's what the US does, and it's a solution which is not working. They have more people in jails than NZ .. more cops are killed each week than NZ ... there are more murders per week than NZ ... just across the boarder in Canada there is a very low rate of murders and cop killings with just as heavily armed a population as NZ and the US , in Britain agian, a low rate of murder and cop killings ... no readily armed police with gklocks on hips ... why do we look to the failing US response, ratrher than the working Canadian or British or other European resposes? Are we so attached to ffollowing the US - in both rising crime and responses - that we can'tr see any other way expect violence? That's the problem right there.

Now, we have created a criminal underclass in this country that si prepared to use violence - against fellow citizens and police - I'm horrified at the generation folloiwng my own. In rebelling against our parents and demanding more freedm, then giving it to our kids we have created a monster ...

Once people become hard core crims it is very difficult to change that - lock them up ... execute them if necessary - but don't see it as a deterent. It never was and it never will be - it's a protective measure only. We have ncreased sentecnes, increased the numbers in jail, but the problem is not going away ... that response is not working . Once in prison we can change the ones we can. At present repeat offending rates are a lot lower than you might think. The repeat incaceration rate for first time offenders is very very low, but the repeat offenders continue to repeat and repeat .. which says that there is a high sucess rate with people put in jail, but the failures are failures for every ...

So we have a group of people in society for whom it is too late - basically we should lock them upand throw away the key ...

However, we need to stop creating criminals ... and there are many factiors which create crims ..poverty - poor educational achievement, poor housing, bad parents (especially crims as parents) ... do you ever think about the children of the people you want to drop in jail? How angry do you think a six year old boy becomes if his father is locked in jail? Where does that anger go? How does the family support itself if father is in jail? On the DPB? Growing up in a single parent famioly on the DPB is a majro risk factor for a child to become a crim. How many potential future crims have been creating by putting fathers in jail? If we want to put them in jail, what do we do about the faimly? Nothing of course - we leave them on the DPB to grow future crims !

Education is a good answer .. give people hope and a future, they will not beconme crims .. that's a long term solution and won't stop the killing of a cop next week .. but will in 10 to 15 years ...

Caring about each other will go along way to help ... Many people were upset when four-year-old James Whakaruru was murdered by his step father in 1999. But what did the community do? Many ases of child abuse - neighbors, friends, family, must know what is happening and do nothing!

At the same time as James died, everyone weanted to blood of Taffy Hotene who raped and murdered Kylie Jones the same year. Taffy Hotene was a James Whakaruru grown up - he grw up in a totally abusive family, went to school hungrry and covered in bruises - he was lucky to survive to adulthood. So how can we feel sorry for the four year old and condemn the grown up man? What would James Whakaruru have beocme if he had lived? Tffy Hotene, Paul Dally Rufus Marsh?

Well, I think Hotene deserved the death penatly - too late for him ..... (and he died in prison last year) But it's not too late for the other four year old Taffy Hotenes and James Whakarurus ...

What are YOU prepaeed to do for them? Just sit back and call them crims that stick out like a sore thumb? Hate them they way they will hate you ? Demand more violence against their families?

No wonder they hate us and will shoot us at the drop of a hat ... I've lived with them and been in their head space ... I've never hated enough to pull a gun, but atttude-wise, I've come close ...

Violence wil only be meet with violence, and a growing war and arms race - that path is a no-win one!


Jeez .. that's a bit of tirade ...

quite a good one, I thought.

my support for the death penalty is purely economic. a life prison sentence or preventative detention is the end of the road for these fuckers. But it costs me $110k/year or whatever to keep them there for all that time. That pisses me off because by that stage they are completely worthless oxygen thieves utterly incapable of becoming useful people ever again. And itsnot like any one of them (or all of them combined) are going to invent cold fusion or anti-gravity is it?