Exemplified by the official response to this piece of historic brutality, where a still-serving officer turned an athlete into a “morphine-dependent invalid” and has apparently suffered precisely no repercussions.

I understand the argument that the IPCA will…

It sounds to me like the narrator for a reality show. But I suspect it may have more to do with courtroom presentation.

Indeed. These 'snob yobs' are a law unto themselves who seem to think Big Rich Lister Daddy…

Ben: I noticed there were no reports of injuries from overly hot pies, so they’re making some progress :-)

IF I recall correctly, it wasn’t a “report of an injury”, it was a community cops suggestion to watch out for the…

It's how they talk when giving evidence, too. I suspect that they have a single communication class to cover all of that.

Very much so. While there may be a few idjits who…

Yes. Looking it up, “has entered”, etc, are present perfect.

I don’t know that there’s anything wrong with using that tense. Except it conveys an awful feeling of endlessly re-living the past. Which is perhaps appropriate.

Isn't that the pluperfect? If we're going to be…

In almost any modern society one might recruit an army of thugs and storm-troopers. Those who know…

What explanation, then, for all the antisocial yobs who get…

When I was lifeguarding at Swimarama in Panmure in the 80s, dope was cool, and alcohol was terrible (though the worst was glue). No P in…

What always bugs me is that even with the best of intentions the…

Much of the anti-social behaviour stems from ignorance of consequences and poverty.. not just lack of wealth... but the poverty of lack of opportunity and the grinding down of NZ society as the greedy & privileged few grab all they can.…

I noticed there were no reports of injuries from overly hot pies, so they're making some progress :-)

Police officers have some pretty variable literacy skills – it's been getting better as they tend to employ people with higher education levels now, but it used to be a…

The grammar grump has never been a court reporter: the fact that cops can tweet understandably is amazing. I had extreme difficulty not snorting with glee as the poker-faced young man in blue droned "I was proceeding in a southerly direction on Whatever Street when....." Police back…

Higher than normal alcohol consumption plus having been with the family all day, thanks to the traditional structure of the week? Just hazarding a guess.

Colleagues encountered some creative misinterpretation at a wall in Glenfield ...

It probably helps that dispatchers have always spoken in short sentences, lots of stock phrases. Rapid communication is the key.

They're a fractious bunch, those Timaru cops.

True, it's just loose phrasing leaving the tweets a bit too open to creative misinterpretation. Putting "in a distressed state" before "in Waiuku" would've fixed it just fine. But we pay our cops to police, not to write, and occasional infelicitous…

Of course, it would be remiss of me not to mention The Timaru Herald's Police Notebook, which captures the more banal and bizarre mutinae of the local cops' daily occurrences. I…

Oh, cool, guess I should find a way over the Great Firewall then.

grammar cop :)

Yup, whoever did the broadcasting doesn't seem to have the firmest grasp of the English language. There were several sentences that could've used an editor to clean them up. But whatever, it's Twitter, not my writing class.

As for broadcasting, I didn't see…

I thought Waiuku was in New Zealand?

Syria is a distressed state.

Odd really. The new digital Police Radios prevented us from listening in to the scanners. The Police demanded them. Now they are “broadcasting” again.

Noticed in article…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1320344/Twitter-police-force-Greater-Manchester-tweets-24-hour-incidents.html