Deborah Coddington: Public makes policing a thankless task

Is it too much to hope for an improvement in the public's attitude towards police after last week's appalling siege in Napier? Since the Louise Nicholas sex assault trials against police officers, I have sensed a growing disrespect for the entire police force.

When police pursuits have ended in crashes, it's always the officers' fault, not the offenders'.

Earlier this year, a 14-year-old boy stole a car, broke the speed limit, drove dangerously enough to crash the car and kill himself. But, according to television news reports, the incident should have seen police question their modus operandi.

Then again, I look forward to meeting liberal souls who, on discovering someone has nicked their car, eschew calling the boys in blue, happy in the knowledge that someone less fortunate than them, who really needs a vehicle even though they're possibly too young and too stoned to drive, has expensive means of transport.

I doubt very much police relish a result which ends in burying a 14-year-old boy, but his life of crime didn't begin when he chose to get into that stolen car.

The way some crime is reported, you almost need a whiteboard and flowchart to keep track of the baddies and the goodies.

In Lower Hutt, ongoing strife over gangs in state houses is so exasperating that the police surely are tempted to sick Michael Laws on to Taita's Mongrel Mob chapter.

Now the gang molls are milking legal aid to take Housing New Zealand to court, challenging an eviction notice.

In the midst of all this mayhem, the police accidentally misplaced a document containing "sensitive information" about an operation when they raided a state house.

Judging by the publicity it received, you'd think the police had committed a capital offence. I'm surprised some MP didn't rush in a bill banning cops from displaying badges offensive to gangs, such was the outcry from these Mongrel Mob members, affronted at their "rights" being breached.

The ultimate came in March when police accidentally left a camera at a house during a raid. This camera was loaded with crime scene images, most pretty upsetting. Most right-minded people who found something which didn't belong to them would immediately return it, but not this camera.

Stokes Valley man Chris Kidman copied the photos, then, according to police, tried to sell them to television reporters.

Kidman denied this, saying he only came forward because the public needed to know when police made mistakes: "If this got into the wrong possession [sic] it could have been all over eBay or anything. There could have been a lot of distraughted [sic] families out there."

He went on to claim that possession of the photos had enabled his uncle's partner to bribe the police to reduce a sentence for his uncle, who was on drug and firearms charges, but Wellington police district commander Superintendent Pieri Munro categorically denied that.

Why any reputable reporters gave Kidman the time of day is a mystery to me. He admitted to having convictions for drug and ammunition offences, he could hardly string two words together, and he had no right to download someone else's photographs from a digital camera to a DVD for his own use. Who is he to pass judgment on police, pontificating on National Radio: "They're supposed to be protecting us"?

So when it came to the Napier standoff between the Armed Offenders Squad and Jan Molenaar, during which innocent neighbours were at risk from this crazed man taking potshots from his house, I thought common sense would prevail and the police would, at last, be respected as those who save us from peril.

Not Molenaar's friend Tony Moore, who couldn't resist his 15 seconds of fame, blaming the police for "provoking" Molenaar, who "wasn't a malicious person" at all. Apparently, it was the "arrogance of the police" that set things off down the path to tragedy.

Along the street another supporter painted "Legend" on his roof. Why do the media give these low-lifes the time of day? Fair and balanced journalism doesn't mean giving morons equal airtime.

Molenaar wasn't a legend, he was a murderer. We push the police - someone's son or daughter, husband or wife, father or mother - into danger when we run and hide from it. Sometimes they don't come home.

They give their lives to protect us.