Re: Apology esp @Adam 52
@Kiwi
The NZ cops are a real mixed bag these days. There where some seriously corrupt officers in the past, and there's a bit of a hangover legacy from them. There is also a new generation who despise the previous lot. You get to see the resulting bunfight whenever one of the old guard starts angling for a top position, and they either get told to foxtrot oscar or their nasty deeds will find their way into the dom post.
The NZ cops also have terrible legal advice. They often manage to fuck up evidence gathering, get told by the courts why it was a fuckup* and then carry on doing the same thing. Then when the prosecution falls over due to the dodgy evidence, they just carry on doing the same.
In the late 80's, a kiwi friend of mine was walking on oriental parade in wellytown, when a cop car with three fellows in drove onto the footpath. One cop hopped out, told my friend to get lost, and grabbed the chap they had been looking for (apparently). The two cops in the car backed it up, and parked up about 50m down the road, facing away from the first cop.
My mate then backs up a bit, takes out his notepad (OG roleplayer) and starts writing down what's happening. First cop gets pretty physical with their suspect (shoving him into a park bench, yelling in his face, grabbing by the throat), other cops look the other way, turning round every so often to check things haven't gotten out of hand.
After 20 minutes or so, the angry cop leaves the suspect, makes some muttered comment to my mate, and walks back to the cop car, and the fine fella's in blue drive off. My mate goes and talks to the (rather distressed) chap, and gives him his details saying he will back him up.
Fast forward nine months, complaint has been made about the cops conduct, my mate is in court being questioned by the police brief. After a bit of verbal foreplay, the lawyer suggests that my mates recall of the events is wrong, and the police version of three of them questioning a mentally unstable agitated suspect is correct. My friend produced his notepad, and went through the series of events, contradicting the cops story with highly specific testimony. Cops brief went white when he saw the notepad.
The cops story relied on the cop car being parked in a fairly specific spot, since they where clear about where they had come from, when they saw the suspect, and how they pulled up (and all supposedly left the car), and how they hadn't done a u-turn and where parked facing the "wrong" way. Unfortunately for them, there where roadworks at the time, so there was only a single direction in which they could have parked (and also why they had driven onto the pavement).
In the end, complaint upheld, assorted charges against the chap where dropped, administrative punishment for the cops involved. My mate got pulled over a lot in the next few years, but other than speeding and thoughtcrime he's a pretty well behaved chap.
Quite a few years later, my friend saw a picture of one of the cops who had been in the car. He'd just been convicted for perverting the course of justice by deliberately causing a second mistrial in a very public case involving (you guessed it) NZ cops on trial. Good to see that some things never change.
If you're in NZ and you're not sure which breed of cop you've got, always opt for the lady officer. They tend to be smart, capable and actually able to deal with certain entrenched criminal elements. After dealing with the shit they get from colleagues, dealing with proper crims is a walk in the park :)
* in public, a civvy can take pictures of anything that doesn't invade someones privacy. The cops need a warrant or court order so that the recordings can be evidence. The cops where getting away with this for about 15 years until it was challenged in a political case (terrorism).