Maori opinion of police plummets after raids, says poll

Alt Tv/Fleet FM Breakfast News Comment
Maori opinion of police plummets after raids, says poll
Nineteen years of painstaking police work to build links with Maoridom have been dashed by the recent treatment of Tuhoe in the search for "terrorists", a new poll says. Wellington law researcher Moana Jackson has repeated a poll he did of 2000 Maori people in 1988 which found that Maori ranked the police 20th out of 20 occupations, and found that earlier this year the police had climbed to 11th out of 20. But he went back to this year's sample again 10 days ago - after the police search for terrorism suspects in the Ruatoki area - and found that police were back down to 20th out of 20 again.

And wasn’t this always going to be the fall out from sending in the Police Ninjas? Yes I think the cops had a right to be concerned, but the way the cops went in to land as steeped in historical injustice as Tuhoe with the ninja squad could only get one reaction, and that would be to radicalize moderates – if the police are going to play at terrorist busters they have to start being smarter with the way they approach it otherwise all they do is exacerbate the situation.