The militarisation of everyday life

over a couple of tinnies or cannabis. what a bunch of non sense, this "crime" doesn't even have a real victim, & compared to alcohol & tobacco,,,, the cops need to fight crime not citizens, this guy has been murdered because his girl was Maori, we all know what a pack of losers the NZ pigs are. RIP Jan, you stood your ground well mate.

fuck you pigs, you need to die. total militant over reaction causing a disaster for nothing.

This connects directly with Oct 15th for one huge main reason as stated in article. It is creeping state oppression.

Watch out 2nd poster ........

"I must disagree on this event. I believe the cops played it straight on this one. This was a correct use of resources, including the LAVs."

You and your family could well be next on the list. And this is not an idle threat but a simple fact. We know once we disagree with the state we are a target. Be very careful.

For some reason this country accepts the use of the army into civilian affairs without question.

Well, you can argue that the police may have fabricated their account of events, and the ppast actions of the police certainly provide some grounds for at least witholding definitive judgment, but to go further and make sweeping statements like 'this guy has been murdered because his girl was Maori' is unwarranted without supporting evidence.

If it is true that the gunman shot three cops then a neighbour without being provoked - and being hassled over cannabis does not count as provocation for such serious actions - then I can't see how the subsequent decision of the police to bring in armoured vehicles was unwarranted. It was only through the use of such vehicles that the body of the slain policeman could be recovered for his family.

The comment that the 'pigs need to die' is idiotic and completely non-political.

Scott

I saw some footage last night, both on TVNZ 1, & CanWests' TV3, which had an overdose of 'journalist interviews journalist' reporting; this appears to have had full media beat-up applied.

?Drug bust as part of the run-up to ratifying amendments to the the Organised Crime Bill, which attempts to identify proceeds of criminal activities supporting 'terrorist' actions; the juxtaposition of 'drugs' and vaguely defined quantities of 'guns & explosives' suggests one more attempt to meddle with the increasingly beleaguered 'mainstream public pov'.

I'm reminded of the mushroom shed paradigm - keep'em in the dark & cover them with bullshit ...

In the case of Terrence Thompson there was no justification for executing him, he was taken out by police snipers while unarmed.

I find it very disturbing too that the Police would use the army during floods to help evacuate people like in Hawkes Bay 2007. All the times the Police has called on the Airforce and Army during search and rescue operations, and crime scene searches is just a clear example of the oppression in NZ by the state and its armed forces.

The issue of marijuana was brought up because it is part of this tale. The police as you know were supposedly raiding his house looking for weed and now the mass media is handing out speculation on a platter for the masses as to why one of their own...a supposed loyal kiwi soldier, went wrong.

So the debate about weed surfaces again, and will surface again and again and was most certainly probably a distraction played by the police as an excuse to raid the guys house but it has opened the door again for discussions on the issue of the illegal status of marijuana.

"But it's already been proven that you smoke weed for long enough and you'll end up crazy."

There are around 700,000 people in this country that claim to smoke weed in varying degrees. What has been proven is that if someone says something enough times some people will start to believe it.

oct15solidarity said:
"I find it very disturbing too that the Police would use the army during floods to help evacuate people like in Hawkes Bay 2007."

I think you confuse the dual roll of the army, one as natural disaster relief and the other as policing civilian activity. In some countries the army is strictly forbidden in policing civilians unless the countries Government has declared marshall law.

That is based more on two things, firstly how those countries were founded, in the case of the US where congress fought for so long to avoid a formal US national army and preferred for a long while to use the militias of the various colonies to do the battling...

Secondly is the belief found again mostly in countries like the US and other republic originated states that there be strict deliniation between the jurisdictions of the state police and judicial and that of the army.

This comes from a historical sense of ownership found in the republic state model that is not found in countries like NZ whose historical pathway has come from serfdom and peasantry in Britain, to replicating that system and those values, or lack of values here under parliamentary law.

So the outworking of that is that while many in the US would shun the use of the army to tackle say a school shooting, in NZ many fully support the army working alongside the police in civilian policing matters.

This is also related to the fact that the police and army in this country are descendants of the same original organisation, the NZ Militia.

Add to that the strong belief by the peon masses that if you are not doing anything wrong then you have nothing to fear...well that is an open gate for abuse.

Reports are Jan had Military rifles etc. Taking a leap of logic. The SLR was de-comissioned around the time he left the TF & the Plastic fantastic Steyr was introduced. I'm betting he squirreled away some of the old SLRs and anything else that goes bang.
Six yrs TF 21yrs ago is a wee way back there. None of the media have said anything about what he has been up to since then.
Was he section 8 (medical discharged - mentally unfit)?

Did the police use tear gas to evict the gunman? If not, why not?

First off as is often the case a heap of the comments in this thread seem reactionary and ill thought out, I wasnt going to comment but decided to throw my two cents in.

Firstly to the commentator insinuating that armed cops will solve problems of domestic abuse. The cops dont treat domestic abuse as a priority, anyone that has listened to a police scanner knows that. As for firearms helping in domestic situations thats just silly.

At the moment if an officer is approached by a violent offender they generally retreat and call in backup, this is often enough to resolve the situation. If an armed officer was approached by a violent offender there is a high chance the officer would pull their gun out. If the offender kept approaching they would get shot. Anyone can see that armed police are going to escalate the situation. Offenders knowing that cops are armed would increasingly carry weapons, cops at current ackknoledge that there is an unspoken agreement between police and offenders that weapons are not used in crime or policing. If the cops start carrying weapons then the results are going to be obvious.

The entire operation in Napier was a media blow up and the police were obviously using it as a chance to practice with all the new units and toys they have been given. All that was nessecary was two or three squads of AOS to cordon the area and disable the offender if he came out armed.Yet the police seem to have flown or driven all their exciting new units to the area as if there was a terrorist attack unfolding. It was obvious from the moment I heard about this that the offender was only a danger to himself.

I dont like to see anyone get shot but I dont see anything that could have been done to prevent the inital shooting of the police. Shootings of cops are rare - there are many more dangerous proffessions out there. The state and police will of course use this even to their advantage, the budget for armed units and the scope of their operations will be vastly expanded over the next few years. The police will increasingly talk of the threat of terrorism and by the time the rugby world cup rolls around I would place money of armed cops being a visible presence.

Anyhow to sum up the police response completely outweighed the threat this lone guy posed. And the state and police will use this to push for increased access to weapons.

This whole thing is to soften up the public for the open arming of the police. The "humanising" of the dead cop, the "demonising" of the dead offender, this is all designed to reduce the dynamics of class war to the old battle of good vs evil individuals.
The neocons that run this country want to unleash state power on anyone who challenges their authority. When capitalism is in crisis they throw democracy out the window but they want to blame the "nutters" for this not their fucked up profit system.
So while the neocons are busy ripping off this countries wealth and making us pay for their crisis, they create an hysteria around staged incidents confronting estranged and deranged individuals who are in their own way challenging the system.
So get ready for the full on criminalisation of all political dissent so that its all about stopping the "terrorists".

I doubt it would have made any difference whether the police had sidearms or not. This guy was clearly more skilled than your average cop which is why the STGs were bought in. All that would have happened is that there were have been the same amount of shot people and the killer would have had their guns to add to his arsenal.

It seems clear to me that the de-registar of firearms has failed as a policy. There has been a systemic failure of Govts & Police to follow up on expired licenses including 'collectors'.

First we need a total registar of all firearms and license holders.

Second ban all Military Styled Semi-Automatics (MSSAs) & handguns.

The excuse is that the illegal weapons are stolen. Well this has proved that not to be true. Jan was a legal holder of those MSSAs & handguns who simply let his license expire by not renewing his lifetime license and the Police did not follow up on it.

So we can ban Gangpatches, or wine with a picknick in a park in your CBD during a liquor ban but not MSSAs & handguns?!

I get the impression that the plod were using the marijuana search warrants as a way of further hassling his partner for which he had clearly had enough of.

""""I get the impression that the plod were using the marijuana search warrants as a way of further hassling his partner for which he had clearly had enough of.""""

knowing the racist vile filth that is kiwi pigs this is voted the most accurate post/comment.

sorry Jan, atleast you got 1.