Judges' profiling 'not just for Maori' - Hawkes Bay Today - 2007-08-20 14:56:00.0 - localnews

Judges' profiling 'not just for Maori' - Hawkes Bay Today - 2007-08-20 14:56:00.0 - localnews

ITN - Man and baby hit by Taser

ITN - Man and baby hit by Taser

Suspect Dies After Being Shot With Taser Gun

Man dies in JPD custody

Clearly, Tasers are used inappropriately and kill people quite often. In cases they cause injury, in New Zealand - Accident Compensation could be claimed by the Tasered if they fell and hit their head. When do the Tasers become weapons available to security firms in New Zealand? How about private individuals?

Of course the right to bear arms is sacrosanct in America, so there is no barrier to arming gangs, thugs or citizens. You could have a Taser in the cupboard under the stairs.

The Police Trials

Police Corruption Trial result

After fourteen years and over seven trials, Louise Nicholas has finally been vindicated. The four guilty verdicts of the former Chief Inspector of the Rotorua CIB John Dewer for perverting the course of justice provides a full stop for her extraordinarily affected life. As a person the public refused to accept the word of, and who yet despite much derision persisted until she challenged the system. Dewer enabled the offending of the aspiring and rapidly rising Clint Rickards who now seems logically doomed as factually, if not legally, well and truly implicated party.

But one has to ask, if that was the pervasive culture of the day as recently as the mid nineties, then what else was going on?

Did we have police covering up and committing other crimes? Did Dewer cover up anything else he should not have? If he wins an appeal, will that be the end of it?

Prime Minister Helen Clark opposed the appointment of Clint Rickards, and if the allegations against him were proven as his own guilt instead of being invalid by reason of coverup, well, he would not survive on $150,000 per annum buying him the finest lawyers he can find who will help him wriggle out of this kind of tar, the kind that sticks?

The appointment of men who think it is okay to rape very young women with their batons is comnpletely out of place - even in the most corrupt courts of Saddam Hussien you would not find such a demeaning torture. The thought of what the baton is used for, and how it is not sterile makes this a criminal act that you do not want all over the headlines for the world to see.

This "culture" that "existed" and "now does not exist" is not a tangible thing. A culture is not just a set of relationships or expectations. It is a code of trust. That a handful of corrupt cops from "those days" are now being put into jail - that says a lot to the police of today. It is not so much a "witch hunt" but a guilty verdict for everyone but Rickards. What one can infer from the Dewer trial effectively makes Rickards hasty "I am not guilty, so I look forward to resuming my job as Commissioner Monday" sound more hollow than ever.

One has to agree with Louise Nicholas. It is worth persisting to seek justice if it changes the world. Finally the public see what she is saying. What happens to Dewer is not so relevant as what now changes in the way that police complaints are investigated. Independent investigation has become necessary, in light of this, and other unsafe findings that have come to light from the overloaded justice system and disturbing corruption now found to have existed by a jury, beyond a reasonable doubt.