The six month trial for the Police Armed Response Team is over, the report submitted, the statistics analysed and the public comment listened to.
At the end of the day Police Commissioner Andrew Coster was on a hiding to nothing, having the trial end at the same time theworld is protesting following the death of American man George Floyd in the custody of police and the high profile Black Lives Matter has in the world news just now.
Of course he was not going to approve the ongoing use of the teams following the pressure from high profile, hugely respected figures in Māoridom genuinely worried about what to do with the question of Māori offending and a cohort of young educated people who just plain hate cops.
Time to move on, the members of the trial will go back to their normal duties as police; continuing to carry firearms in their daily duties as needed. They will return to their normal patrol cars, all with weapons in the boot, needed more and more in New Zealand as time goes by.
Inane commentary from the likes of Ron Mark, the Minister of Defence, on police matters is not helpful.
Saying that New Zealand police will no longer face high calibre automatic or semi-automatic weapons with up to 30 round magazines so therefore do not need similar weapons, inferring all such weaponry has been handed in, is misleading and mischievous.
Armed Police
First of all not all weapons have been handed in, a goodly proportion of them are still in the community, secondly only the good, law-abiding, responsible gun owners handed their weapons in, not members of the New Zealand underworld.
They still have their semi-automatic pistols and carbines, rifles and sawn-off shotguns.
They are still carrying them, some concealed, others within easy reach, in case of attack by other criminals, to protect their meth labs, to intimidate witnesses and fellow-criminals and, lastly to use against police when apprehended.
I struggle always with the naiveté of many agenda-driven, well-meaning commentators.
New Zealand is a heavily armed country, always has been.
Taking modern weapons off the police or making them use some other form of equipment, at possible danger to themselves and to members of the public, could lead to a disaster and the blood will be on the hands of those very high profile commentators and some politicians attempting to garner the disaffected vote.
I have said before in this column and will say again, New Zealand's "unarmed" police service is a misnomer.
It has always been reasonably well-armed.
The difference in the past 20 or so years is that the weapons are carried openly.
With the change to a more paramilitary, casual type of uniform the ability to carry weapons concealed is difficult.
This, I totally understand, can frighten or concern some members of the public.
In years past police carried revolvers or pistols in shoulder holsters or kidney holsters under a jacket or tunic.
There has been fulltime armed police on New Zealand streets for many years, diplomatic protection officers, airport police, night shift detectives and sergeants all carry or are allowed to carry pistols during normal duties and have done for at least the past 60-odd years.
As a sergeant I often carried a .38 revolver in a shoulder holster under my tunic on evening and night shifts in the 1980s.
A recent RNZ article about the ART targeting 12-year-old Māori children is again emotional and sensationalist reporting.
Upon initial reading of the headlines one would assume that the police sent ART to intimidate and arrest children.
Upon reading a bit further it is clear ART attended incidents where, amongst the people involved were young children. This happens.
The children are not responsible for what older teenagers or adults are alleged to be doing.
Rob Rattenbury.
Also the initial information received by police is usually minimal to start with simply because of the emotion of the moment. It is often not until police arrive do they realise what they are really dealing with.
I totally accept that some Māori have an issue with Police dating back many years.
To say that the police, by policy, target Māori is simply so wrong.
The saddest part of this is that police are required to disproportionately deal with Māori in incidents of violence or other crime.
Of Māori descent, I am ashamed of this.
Blaming the police for Māori offending is simplistic. The reason why Māori offending dominates our crime statistics is beyond this article but reading New Zealand's real colonial history gives a clue.
Also sadly I am the first to admit that there are racist police. All police come from our community with all its biases and prejudices. Rotten apples can occur everywhere unfortunately.
