Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Even if it was a “prank”, they knew how to find me at home. Think about that.
I meant prank from someone you knew. I don't know if your name etc is out there enough somewhere for them to attach your views on police to your name/phone number/address?
If it was a police officer, that wouldn't be a prank, that would definitely be harassment. But it would be a mighty stupid police officer that not only phoned you, but pretended to be the commissioner. Way to short track your career.
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A person identifying themselves as Police Comissionner Peter Marshall phoned me on my private land line early this afternoon, named me and said that they wished to talk about the Roastbusters case. I immediately said that I had no interest in talking to hjm about it and hung up.
That does sound _so_ unusual I'd suspect mis-judged prank over what you're worried about.
If Police Commissioners were to go intimidating people, that's not how they'd do it.
And they really don't have time to phone up critics and make chitchat - I speak from experience here.
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This seems relevant to your work on cycle helmets/safety David:
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For over-the-top feelgood, dance with your kids happy - Lindsey Ray.
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Gee that Firstline interview with Marshall inspires no confidence whatsoever does it? Maybe he's a good grandfather, seemed very nice.
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Does New Zealand not have a parody defence like in the U.S.?
49 Use of term Police or New Zealand Police in operating name
(1) A person commits an offence who, without reasonable excuse, carries on an activity under an operating name that includes the word “Police” or the words “New Zealand Police”, in a manner likely to lead a person to believe that the activity is endorsed or authorised by the Police or any part of the Police
You'd struggle to see that poster as fulfilling the bit from "in a manner likely" onwards.
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But why do you need that same physical fitness if you’re visiting a burgled home the day after the event? Or taking witness statements?
My Dad spent much of his police career driving a desk, but he always ensured the he drove a car with lights and sirens and a radio. Once as a district commander he was driving along the southern motorway and began pursuit of a burglar that overtook him. Pursued him to the Manukau shopping centre where he abandoned the car and pursued him on foot across the car park. Caught him with a breaking and entering kit and arrested him.
Better work stories? But I do know that police officers move around their jobs a fair bit, so while you're running a desk one year, you might be a sergeant next year and out in charge of a squad on the streets. They use un-sworn staff for people who are never going to need to do 'police work'.
ETA2: I can’t see why you’d need to have a sworn/non-sworn distinction. You could have specialties and still have them all sworn.
Non-sworn staff are much cheaper. Recruiting a sworn staff member into general work takes about three years, including the recruitment process, 6 months of training (during which they get well paid), and then their compulsory beat work etc. Must cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars each. Even if you streamlined it they need to be trained to be police officers.
Unsworn staff are just ordinary administration staff like any other business. They can be recruited via advertising and can start as soon as they give notice to their old job.
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Your use of the conditional in that sentence is charmingly optimistic, Kyle.
Yup, I know. There are of course plenty of times that victims withdraw complaints or don't make complaints themselves. It's no doubt a shit of a process to go through.
But you wouldn't be doubling down on the police in this instance. There's a facebook meme waiting to happen of photos of women wearing ordinary clothes, and text of "are these the 'rape me' clothes you were talking about officer?"
Quotas pretty much invariably get achieved by dropping recruitment standards
I don't know how police recruitment works now, I worked there briefly 20 years ago. At which time they were actively encouraging female/pacific island/asian etc applicants. To do this they were investing in advertising and targeting those groups to get more of them to apply. Post-secondary education was also becoming more important.
At that stage it was (I think) a three stage process. You completed a written application to make sure you were eligible (no serious convictions etc). You then did a physical test which included a run, skin fold, weight, height etc. If you passed that then you had an interview with a commissioned officer.
The police are funded to train X number of new recruits each year, divided into wings. From memory recruitment presented more suitable applicants than was required any year, so they got to pick those that they wanted. I think they probably were taking almost all suitable females, ethnic minorities, and then picking the white males that they wanted. But the standard stayed the same regardless of the fact that they were targeting certain people to increase their numbers in the force.
Certainly at that time, police was a real heirarchy of having to do your time in order to progress. New recruits would typically get appointed to the old Central Auckland or Manukau districts for a year of beat work, regardless of where they lived. You also had to do time in the control room early in your career. You had to pass your sergeants exam, but then you had to wait for an NCO position to come up before you could take up the role. Detectives exams were difficult and lots of police had literacy issues with it. You had to serve in the less popular units (car theft, fraud) before you got into the more interesting work (homicide etc).
And you definitely had to be willing to move yourself and your family to progress your career, numerous times. That's more likely to be a problem for female officers.
As much as recruitment has been difficult for them, I think people leaving the force is as much an issue. Their best and brightest have good prospects and police training and 5-10 years in the force is a good launching pad for a career.
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I would hope that every complaint to the police where someone has been interviewed has a complaint number (and as such is formal). So from this perspective, it sounds more like “we couldn’t be bothered with the paperwork, so told them to go away” than anything else.
The guy on firstline was a little vague, but a formal complaint by my understanding would require certain things. There's a broad report form, but in the case of a sexual assault or violation the victim would be formally interviewed, a statement completed with the victim and signed. There would often be video taken in that time. The police officer talked about dolls being used to reinact. Often photos of injuries would be taken, and if the incident was recent medical staff would complete a rape kit.
All this creates a police file which is given a unique number and puts it into the system. It wouldn't all be compulsory, but for a case to be pursued I'd imagine the statement from the victim, or eyewitness reports from an informant would be a minimum.
In the case of domestic violence (at least when I worked in this area briefly in the 90s) there's a separate domestic violence form which has to be completed which provides additional information. This came in 20something years ago when the police started to move into the 20th century on domestic violence.
A 'complaint' might not complete some or all of these steps. Perhaps victims came to talk to police but didn't want to complete and sign a statement. Perhaps police said "lets get your parents in so they can support you" and the victims backed away at that stage. Perhaps they didn't want to complete medical exams. It's no doubt a crappy process.
And yes, as Russell pointed out, perhaps police encouraged these young women not to take it further :(
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Christ, what a mess.
I'm normally one of the people on here defending the police, but there's not much to be said about this. How the officer in charge can say "no girls have been brave enough to make a complaint" when one had two years ago.
They're going to struggle to fit all this under the carpet.