PERAMBULATING PENSIONER POUNCED BY POLICE, who watches the Watchers?
Further to the Great NZ Tuhoe Terrorist Hunt (have they got their medals yet?) one has to ask (how about Ben and Ollivia’s killer? — oops, sorry, they got that one) (!).
If this snippet is true, of course, one might have to think; but this Australian sort of thing couldn’t happen here in New Zealand, thank heavens:
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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/12/07/1196813021247.html
” … TWO police officers handcuffed a 64-year-old pensioner, threw her to the ground and then searched inside her bra and underpants on a busy suburban road in the mistaken belief she was a drug dealer.
… the ordeal left an ailing Leentje McDonald, of Maroubra, in hospital and severely traumatised. But she did not receive an apology from police. Rather, she has been charged with assaulting an officer.
…while it is unusual for a pensioner to be mistaken for a 40-year-old ...”
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ONE WONDERS whether this fits the same classification as the “He didn’t stop so we fired six warning shots. He still didn’t stop so we fired one more that stopped the bugger in his tracks …” (my paraphrasing—Pan).
Given:
a. He couldn’t stop ‘cos he wasn’t going anywhere at the time (sitting! Oh, he also had a plainclothes cop hanging from him like a rabid rottweiler).
b. All six of those warning shots were through his head.
c. The one that stopped him was effective only ‘cos it followed the tracks of the first six (beautiful grouping though, let’s give credit where it’s due).
d. Six! Ye gods … and this on a crowded tube train (memo: in London, take the bus)
Top marks to the London police for a well planned anti-terrorist action; certainly that bugger will think twice before doing it again.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/menezes/0,,1691452,00.html
Could it happen here, in New Zealand?
I doubt it — in NZ we still have friendly neighbourly bobbies, not armed thugs running round dressed as Rambo-cop.
Our police still knock on doors, they don’t just sturmbannfuhrer out of the darkness in great numbers with battering rams in the wee small hours.
Often wondered, though, who pays for the damages? Who rebuilds innocent doors? Just askin’.
And is that nice Mr Rickards still picking up his police top-dog salary for not policing? Or did he do the decent thing and fall on his sword — why, if innocent? Mind you, for that money and those perks it would have taken me a while, too.
Meanwhile, the All Blacks have a coach …
SEMPER VIGILANS
