Blue mist

My TV review for The Daily Blog will be posted up over there. This one is on the police reality shows.

The drama of the great police chase that went from Kaimai to Albany is something of a case in point. How will that be portrayed? All the cops are heros and the offender was a maniac - end of story according the police official version. That hopelessly conflicted perspective will be faithfully translated to the small screen should this incident feature. How the cops could be so monumentally incompetent as to let someone drive all the way through Auckland - including through a tunnel you would expect to be the natural point of blockage - instead of being stopped before the Bombays is a testament to ineptitude, paralysis and caution bordering on cowardice, surely, what other explanation is there?

NZ Herald:
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Henry died after a shootout on the northern motorway just after 2am yesterday.

Police had pursued the 20-year-old from the Kaimai Range, Bay of Plenty, which was more than 360km from where Henry stopped driving on the motorway.

In a statement released this afternoon, police said they had concluded their scene examination of the area near where the gunfire exchange took place, close to Sunset Road.
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How one man, in one ute, with one rifle could do all that - and how the police could let him, or couldn't stop him - is something akin to the epic car chase in the 'Blues Brothers' movie. Either this guy is a legend combining the driving skills of 'The Stig', with the staunchness of a Stallone character, or the police are utter muppets. I bet on muppetry. As usual there are more questions than answers at this point because there is no truly independent agency to investigate the police to keep them honest. As such the police will only release information confirming their own story, which is half the story, as we are finding out with the Waitara golf course killing. Another Waitara Maori shot in the back by the cops is not a good look.