Dialogue: How do our police put up with us?

By GARTH GEORGE

I have no opinion on the circumstances surrounding the death of Steven Wallace in a confrontation with police at Waitara. I wasn't there, I don't know the people involved and, having spent some two decades as a frontline newspaper reporter, I have a deep suspicion of the veracity of eye-witness accounts.

So I shall hold my peace until all the evidence is available, if it ever is, because the way things are set up that may never happen. The Police Complaints Authority is far too keen on exercising its rights to secrecy; and the internal police inquiry is suspect because it is just that - police investigating one of their own.

Were it a matter of them investigating one of their own who was suspected of being on the take, or of committing a crime or crimes, I would have every faith in the result, for they have from time to time dealt mercilessly with cops who have gone bad.

We are fortunate still to have - in spite of every effort by the previous Government, aided and abetted by an inept bureaucracy - a police force of which we can be proud and, more importantly, that we can trust. Few nations can so boast. The one over the Tasman certainly can't.

But even in little old New Zealand being a policeman or woman remains one of the most thankless jobs anyone can take on. As upholders of the law, the thin blue line stands between the so-called law-abiding citizen and those who would create havoc in society.

I say "so-called" law-abiding citizens because I wonder just how many of us really are? I was listening to Leighton Smith's programme on Newstalk ZB at the height of the Waitara opinion-fest last week, thinking to myself that I wouldn't be a policeman no matter what the pay, when he read out a fax sent to him by a listener. It is said to have been written by an American policeman and it says it all better than I could. He wrote:

"Well, Mr Citizen, it seems you have figured me out. I seem to fit neatly into the category where you have placed me. I'm stereotyped, standardised, characterised, classified, grouped and always typical. Unfortunately, the reverse is true. I can never figure you out.

"From birth you teach your kids that I'm a bogeyman, then you're shocked when they identify with my traditional enemy - the criminal.

"You accuse me of going easy on criminals, until I catch your kids doing wrong. You may take an hour for lunch plus a number of coffee breaks each day, but point me out as a loafer for having one cup. You pride yourself on your manners but think nothing of disrupting my meals with your troubles.

"You raise hell with the guy who cuts you off in traffic, but let me catch you doing the same thing and I'm picking on you. You know all the traffic laws but have never received a single ticket you deserved. You shout 'foul' if you observe me driving fast to a call, but raise the roof if I take more than 10 seconds to respond to your complaint.

"You call it part of my job if someone strikes me, but call it police brutality if I strike back. You wouldn't think of telling a dentist how to pull teeth or tell a doctor how to operate on your appendix, yet you're always willing to give me pointers to the law.

"You talk to me in a manner that would get you a bloody nose from anyone else, but expect me to take it without batting an eyelid. You yell 'something's got to be done' to fight crime, but you can't be bothered to get involved.

"You have no use for me at all, but of course it's okay if I change a flat tyre on your wife's car, deliver your child in the back of my patrol car, perhaps save your son's life with mouth-to-mouth breathing, or work many hours of overtime with no extra money looking for your lost daughter.

"So, Mr Citizen, you can stand there on your soapbox and rant and rave about the way I do my job, calling me all the names in the book, but never stop to think that your property, family or even your life depend on me or one of my buddies.

"Yes, Mr Citizen, it's me - the lousy cop."

Thank God that there still are men and women among us who are prepared to join up, front up and put up with that.

* Email: