I have no criminal record, and have only had limited interactions with the Police. In fact, I have only had five meaningful interactions with the New Zealand Police in my entire life (i.e. not including traffic stops, breathtests etc.). This article summarises all five and gives them a rating out of 10.
Interaction One, 1986
My mother is a diagnosed schizophrenic and has been since before I was born. She was institutionalised in 1986, when I was five. In the weeks leading up to this she had become more and more erratic and unhinged. One day, the Police came up and dragged her away screaming. Two officers held her under one arm each, her legs trailing in the gravel, and chucked her into the back of a wagon. Then they drove away to Ngawhatu mental hospital.
I understand that things were rougher in those days. It was still a tough thing to see as a kid, and did not endear me to the Police. It taught me that the Police are there to enforce the will of the ruling class upon the plebs, and not to negotiate with them. Negotiation is something you do with equals – poor, mentally ill people are just to be smashed.
Rating: 0/10
Interaction Two, 1990
One of my relatives, who lived nearby, was a cannabis grower. For whatever reason, the Police figured this out and came to bust him one day. This wasn’t a close interaction, as I was mostly watching from next door while my relative’s place got turned over and he got led away in handcuffs. But it still coloured my attitude towards the Police.
I didn’t know anything about cannabis then. But I knew that actual crimes were murder, robbery, assault etc., not growing plants. My grandmother expressed a deep sense of injustice at the arrest and subsequent imprisonment, and at the effect that imprisonment had on my relative’s mental health, and these feelings influenced me heavily. That the Police would enforce oppressive laws like cannabis prohibition made me see them as evil.
Rating: 0/10
Interaction Three, Summer 2004/05
At this time I lived in a central Christchurch apartment. At about 2:30a.m. one Saturday morning I heard a smashing noise on the road outside. I looked out the window to see a bunch of youths, maybe 15-16, breaking windows on parked cars with golf clubs.
I called 111, explained the situation and a patrol car turned up in about five minutes. They arrested the youths, but not before pointing them towards my apartment so I could confirm on the phone it was them. I never heard from the Police about it, so I presume the youths confessed and got diversion or similar. In all, justice was delivered swiftly and efficiently.
Rating: 9/10
Interaction Four, Summer 2008/09
When I was a barman in Nelson, I got attacked by a drunken thug who I had cut off for being a drunken thug. Upon reporting the assault to the Police, I found that they weren’t particularly interested. Although there was supposedly a crackdown against alcohol violence underway at the time, they only grudgingly took my complaint, trying to convince me along the way that it probably wasn’t worth bothering with.
This surprised me, as the Police routinely arrest and lock up people for victimless drug crimes. On what planet is a violent crime no big deal, in comparison to that? I am grateful that the Police ended up prosecuting the offender and obtaining a conviction. But the way they handled my complaint made me realise that they’re not there to help working-class people, rather just manage us at the lowest possible cost. If that means fobbing an assault victim off then so be it.
Rating: 5/10
Interaction Five, July 2019
About 10.30a.m. one rainy Winter morning I got a knock on my front door. I stubbed out my joint and went outside to find two Police officers. They said they had come as part of Operation Whakahumanu to ask me some questions about my online activity. This was in the wake of me getting attacked in the mainstream media by the Human Rights Commission for selling ‘It’s Okay To Be White’ t-shirts on TradeMe.
Apparently the ‘It’s Okay To Be White’ saga had got me on a list of suspected white supremacists, so after the Christchurch mosque shooting I was suspected to be another mass killer in waiting. As someone with no criminal record and who doesn’t own firearms, I would have thought all violent criminals, at least, would be higher priority. It turns out that wrongthinkers are at the top of the hate list.
I refused to answer any questions and asked for a warrant, which they didn’t have, so I asked them to please leave the property. I had to repeat this a few times before they did.
Getting targeted by the Police in an intimidation and harassment campaign on Government orders is a deeply unpleasant experience. It emphasised to me the extent to which people like me – anyone who tells the truth – are the enemy of the ruling class.
Rating: 0/10
Total rating: 14/50 (2.8/10 average)
Generally my interactions with the New Zealand Police have been poor, despite not being a criminal. Although they sometimes do the right thing, they have clearly demonstrated to me that they are primarily the thugs of the ruling classes, and are happy to destroy lower-class people on spurious grounds if given an order to do so.
Bonus: this isn’t an interaction as such, but the Police appear to monitor everything I post online with the apparent intent to comb through it for wrongthink. Another 0/10.
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