"Police dog ensures witness attends trial"

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PaulBags

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#130672 23-Sep-2013 20:51

Assualting someone with a dog to convince them to turn up to court as a witness, how is that legal??

Now sure, the guy doesn't exactly sound like a prize human specimen. But he hasn't actually been accused of any wrongdoing, so setting the dogs him, and (presumably) taking him straight off to court with only a few bandages and no real medical treatment; seems pretty over the top.

Unfortunately the article is a sorry excuse for journalism and doesn't go into the details of this police brutality. But I had to express my outrage somewhere.

kiwitrc

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#901487 23-Sep-2013 21:00

Hope they washed the dogs mouth out afterwards.

johnr

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#901494 23-Sep-2013 21:11

kiwitrc: Hope they washed the dogs mouth out afterwards.

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#901521 23-Sep-2013 21:50

I agree with the OP's outrage, although we may be in the minority here

kingjj

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#901559 23-Sep-2013 22:55

I must be missing something because I don't see anything in that article that gives context to the alleged "police brutality". We have no inclination of how the alleged offender got his injuries other than that a police dog was involved. For all we know the alleged offender in all of this was wanted on one or more Warrant's to Arrest; was caught in the act of committing another crime; was armed and/or threatening violence toward Police or another party; attacked an officer or disobeyed a lawful instruction of the Police dog handler, ALL of which made the force used justifiable in enacting an arrest (a Police dog is not a lethal weapon and an officer is not about to jeopardise their career by letting it do more damage than is necessary). The OP makes assumptions that the alleged offender was provided with little or no medical attention after the event, are they privy to something we are not or is this another case or reading between the lines and coming to one's own preconceived conclusion? Heck he could have had a car accident on his way to the courthouse and the dog handler was kind enough to give him a lift for all we know!

Can I suggest the Trademe Boards (plenty of anti-police-plus-any-and-all-government-departments sentiment there!) if you want to find sympathy for your "outrage" because from the evidence you have presented (one article of dubious quality with two semi-relevant lines than don't contain the meaning that one is hunting for) I see nothing worthy of discussion here.

By all means latch on to a more relevant article (one where the Police have admitted or been found guilty of mistreatment) as there are plenty out there (and most are justified) but don't clutch at straws on GZ please.

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#901564 23-Sep-2013 23:03

Rights abuse would be an interesting discussion. And it's not just the police the abuse them.

kingjj

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#901565 23-Sep-2013 23:14

1eStar: Rights abuse would be an interesting discussion. And it's not just the police the abuse them.

In a perfect world there would be no rights abuse or corruption. No department or country is immune unfortunately, and NZ does have a pretty shocking record (in modern history as well as colonial). Internationally we can at-least be happy that NZ currently ranks 1st equal in the Corruption Perceptions Index 2012. I agree a discussion on rights abuse would be interesting but it would need to be in a different topic where it covers the whole spectrum not just the Police.

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PaulBags

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#901589 24-Sep-2013 00:12

kingjj: I must be missing something because I don't see anything in that article that gives context to the alleged "police brutality". We have no inclination of how the alleged offender got his injuries other than that a police dog was involved. For all we know the alleged offender in all of this was wanted on one or more Warrant's to Arrest; was caught in the act of committing another crime; was armed and/or threatening violence toward Police or another party; attacked an officer or disobeyed a lawful instruction of the Police dog handler, ALL of which made the force used justifiable in enacting an arrest (a Police dog is not a lethal weapon and an officer is not about to jeopardise their career by letting it do more damage than is necessary). The OP makes assumptions that the alleged offender was provided with little or no medical attention after the event, are they privy to something we are not or is this another case or reading between the lines and coming to one's own preconceived conclusion? Heck he could have had a car accident on his way to the courthouse and the dog handler was kind enough to give him a lift for all we know!

Can I suggest the Trademe Boards (plenty of anti-police-plus-any-and-all-government-departments sentiment there!) if you want to find sympathy for your "outrage" because from the evidence you have presented (one article of dubious quality with two semi-relevant lines than don't contain the meaning that one is hunting for) I see nothing worthy of discussion here.

By all means latch on to a more relevant article (one where the Police have admitted or been found guilty of mistreatment) as there are plenty out there (and most are justified) but don't clutch at straws on GZ please.

I made an assumption about medical treatment, which I declared as such, because I doubt they'd use such force to take him to court as a witness unless they were heading straight there, hence the assumption of barely any medical attention i.e. no time to administer any.

And you have your facts wrong. This person was not an alleged offender, merely a potential witness. The article says that police set the dogs on him merely to ensure he attended court as a witness, had there been a more justified reason the article at the very least should have mentioned it.

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#901591 24-Sep-2013 00:28

Hardly enough information in that story to make any conclusions about this situation at all.

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Byrned

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#901637 24-Sep-2013 08:19

Must've been a hostile witness!

The greater crime is the statement by Tongia "It had been benefit day so he had been out for a meal and gambling earlier in the evening."

And I particulary enjoyed "...that Edwards was "pretty good on the pokies" and had sometimes won quite a bit of money" and "Sometimes he would get electronic items as presents and would sell them to his mates..." Good Tui billboard right there!

kingjj

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#901655 24-Sep-2013 09:02

PaulBags:
kingjj: I must be missing something because I don't see anything in that article that gives context to the alleged "police brutality". We have no inclination of how the alleged offender got his injuries other than that a police dog was involved. For all we know the alleged offender in all of this was wanted on one or more Warrant's to Arrest; was caught in the act of committing another crime; was armed and/or threatening violence toward Police or another party; attacked an officer or disobeyed a lawful instruction of the Police dog handler, ALL of which made the force used justifiable in enacting an arrest (a Police dog is not a lethal weapon and an officer is not about to jeopardise their career by letting it do more damage than is necessary). The OP makes assumptions that the alleged offender was provided with little or no medical attention after the event, are they privy to something we are not or is this another case or reading between the lines and coming to one's own preconceived conclusion? Heck he could have had a car accident on his way to the courthouse and the dog handler was kind enough to give him a lift for all we know!

Can I suggest the Trademe Boards (plenty of anti-police-plus-any-and-all-government-departments sentiment there!) if you want to find sympathy for your "outrage" because from the evidence you have presented (one article of dubious quality with two semi-relevant lines than don't contain the meaning that one is hunting for) I see nothing worthy of discussion here.

By all means latch on to a more relevant article (one where the Police have admitted or been found guilty of mistreatment) as there are plenty out there (and most are justified) but don't clutch at straws on GZ please.

I made an assumption about medical treatment, which I declared as such, because I doubt they'd use such force to take him to court as a witness unless they were heading straight there, hence the assumption of barely any medical attention i.e. no time to administer any.

And you have your facts wrong. This person was not an alleged offender, merely a potential witness. The article says that police set the dogs on him merely to ensure he attended court as a witness, had there been a more justified reason the article at the very least should have mentioned it.

You made an assumption about medical care with absolutely no knowledge of how the situation went down and used it to form the basis of your argument. Appropriate medical attention can be administrated at the road side by Police or Ambulance staff, "bloodied and bandaged" is just journalistic waffle to sexy up a story. And we still have NO knowledge of the circumstance of how and why he was caught and taken to court. What we have is assumptions (and we KNOW what they make people) and preconceived perceptions. If there was a notion of police ill-treatment you can bet your dollar that Stuff would have blown it out of proportion after the judge made comments to that effect.

Disclaimer: I am not a Police Officer but I do have knowledge of how their system works as well as a degree in Mass Communications (aka Media Studies). I also hate assumptions that can't be backed up with fact.

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#901700 24-Sep-2013 09:47

PaulBags: Assualting someone with a dog to convince them to turn up to court as a witness, how is that legal??

Now sure, the guy doesn't exactly sound like a prize human specimen. But he hasn't actually been accused of any wrongdoing, so setting the dogs him, and (presumably) taking him straight off to court with only a few bandages and no real medical treatment; seems pretty over the top.

Unfortunately the article is a sorry excuse for journalism and doesn't go into the details of this police brutality. But I had to express my outrage somewhere.

AFAIAC the guy is a waste of oxygen. Go the dog!

"Tongia said that on the night of the robbery he had been at home at his partner's house. It had been benefit day so he had been out for a meal and gambling earlier in the evening."

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corksta

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#901758 24-Sep-2013 10:55

And you have your facts wrong. This person was not an alleged offender, merely a potential witness. The article says that police set the dogs on him merely to ensure he attended court as a witness, had there been a more justified reason the article at the very least should have mentioned it.

No where in the article does it state this!

I can't understand why you are 'outraged' when none of us know the exact circumstances surrounding the person being apprehended. You weren't there, I wasn't there, the journalist wasn't there and as a result they're just trying to put two and two together based on what a prosecutor inferred and what the journalist has observed in order to make a story! You can bet that if the 'dogs were set on him' then that would have been part of the story!

There are so many possibilities, consider this: there was a possibility the guy might run (obviously he hadn't appeared when he was supposed to and didn't want to be there), dogs were brought along to discourage him from doing so, he's hurt himself trying to hide in a garden shed, escape the house, etc, and there he is now bandaged up. Just because dogs were brought along doesn't mean they were used on him!

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#901759 24-Sep-2013 11:07

I agree with corksta and was trying to find where the op found all his information. I'm guessing the story has been embellished at the lest we have very little to make assumptions one way or other.

To save people going at each other over nothing i would suggest waiting until the facts are known or do as suggested and take it to the trolls forum on trademe.

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#901791 24-Sep-2013 11:35

I sincerely hope WINZ are cutting his benefit now that he admits to spending his tax payer handout gambling.