NZ Police: Hard case

The instant porn-kill that is the 'roast busters' case continues more than a month after the police were exposed.

NZ Herald:
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The Police Commissioner has been grilled by MPs over the handling of the Roast Busters rape allegations, conceding it should have been "sharper".
[...]
Yesterday, Mr Marshall was grilled by a select committee in Wellington about the police response to the case.
Asked for his assessment of the police response, the commissioner said: "Certainly, the situation involving the initial response - that there hadn't been a complaint and then we found there had been a complaint - was something that we should have been sharper on in terms of communication.
"That excited, naturally, the members of the public, and we accept that."

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Communication has nothing to do with it. What "excited" the public was that detectives from the Waitemata District had known about and covered up a series of rapes by young men - including the son of a serving policeman - and that these detectives had told them what they were doing was OK. That is what sickens people. It "excites" the public that the police commissioner himself has given many assurances that these young men will not be charged and that he expects all police staff to be exonerated in the following phoney self-investigation that will be done by the police on behalf of the supposedly independent IPCA. Commissioner Marshall is ultimately reponsible - he has admitted he knows the father of the accused. The obvious conflicts of interests here seem to have escaped the Commissioner, the hopeless Police Minister, Anne Tolley, and the rest of the government and the opposition.

That the police commissioner can get away with vouching for a rape gang shows the shallowness of political talent in this country and the profound and misplaced trust in the police that permits this sort of corruption to continue.

I was especially disappointed by Jacinda Ardern.
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Labour police spokeswoman Jacinda Ardern, who led the questions yesterday, was pleased with Mr Marshall's response.
"When these kinds of situations arise, the public makes as much of a judgment over the handling of it as they do the issue itself," she said last night.
"And in this case there certainly were failings, and the Commissioner has acknowledged that."
Ms Ardern was confident the police were doing their best to resolve the case.
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No they aren't doing their best to resolve anything - they are doing their best to do nothing and leave it unresolved. All the evidence makes that clear. We are over a month into this and all the police have done is organise a covering operation known as "Clover" to direct the victims away from a prosecution and towards other government agencies. The police are refusing to give any details of this non-operation.

The New Zealand political establishment has failed mightily. I heard Sean Plunket on Radio Live agreeing with Police Assoc. spokesperson Greg O'Conner that it was all just a "mucked up press conference" over what was a complaint or not. Sean said he's see Greg for a beer over the holidays. Yuck.

Once Graham McCready and his private prosecution agency lay charges the police lose control and it is game over: big boys jail since they're all 18 and over, objection to suppression, seeking maximum charges, maximum penalties. The Commissioner cannot stay on in that situation - which is why the police are putting up such flak.