Fatal police shootings: Māori advocate calls for change in approach

By RNZ

Kaoss Price, 22, was shot by police on Saturday night after he rammed a patrol car on State Highway 3 between New Plymouth and Waitara.

Unanswered questions remain over the shooting as his whānau grieves his loss.

The family says they do not believe he was armed at the time of his death, but police have not answered that question.

Criminal justice advocate Emilie Rākete told Midday Report lethal force should be used sparingly to stop Māori from dying at the hands of police.

"The reality is that Māori people are significantly more likely to be shot and killed by police, to be pepper-sprayed, to have an attack dog set on them, and the police have this kind of plausible deniability that allows them to continue abusing our people this way."

Questions are being raised on social media as police remain quiet about the shooting, as to whether Kaoss was armed at the time.

Kaoss Price, 22, reportedly rammed a police car before he was shot and killed. Photo / Supplied

"It's going to be a while before we have any clear details on what happened."

An Independent Police Conduct Authority investigation will go ahead, but Rākete expresses doubt about what it will find.

"As RNZ has already recorded, the IPCA finds every single police shooting justified.

"So it's going to be on Kaoss's whānau, on the community and on organisations like People Against Prisons Aotearoa to really find out what happened and try and find some accountability at the end of it."

There has been much discussion online about Price's criminal record and family background.

"Every time the police shoot and kill somebody, they'll point to any number of factors about that instant and say that that was what meant they had no other option but to take somebody's life."

The shooting was the fifth fatal police shooting in Taranaki since 2000.

"The reality is that it doesn't really matter what happens in this case, in this individual instance.

"What we should be looking at is the trend, and the trend is that fatal police shootings have tripled in the last decade in this country.

"Violent crime has not tripled. Attacks on police have not tripled. But police willingness to shoot and kill somebody has tripled. That's troubling."

Rākete called for disarmament.

Police had been conducting an examination of the scene where Kaoss Price died for several days. Photo / Supplied

"Police need to be disarmed, frankly," she says.

Rākete says options could include de-escalation.

"Of course there are going to be emergency crisis situations in which a violent response is called for, but that hasn't tripled in the last 10 years.

"What has tripled in the last 10 years is the police's willingness to use lethal force as the first option in tense situations, and that needs to be changed before more Māori people have their lives taken."

- RNZ