POLICE CONDUCT Call For Inquiry To Go To Ombudsman

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32209, 30 January 1970, Page 24

POLICE CONDUCT Call For Inquiry To Go To Ombudsman

(New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, January 29. It would be more in accord with public confidence if the Ombudsman, rather than the police authorities, handled the inquiry into alleged police brutality during the visit to Auckland of the United States Vice-President (Mr Spiro Agnew), according to a special correspondent of the Roman Catholic weekly, “Tablet.”

There should be no desire to find a scapegoat. Nor should there be any attempt to hide facts, the special report says. “The faults of demonstrators, constables, and police authorities should be realistically examined, the public confidence retrieved, and realistic policies developed for the next time.”

There was enough lack of communication between the police and demonstrators to cause concern to any New Zealander who did not want the communication gap between police and demonstrators and the public to reach the proportions now evident in some overseas countries, the report said, calling for a thorough investigation by the Ombudsman or a commission of inquiry. “The chance is with us at

this moment to decide which are the directions we want our society to move in.” The marching on of police in huge numbers and with grim faces was an over-re-action to the situation which helped the demonstrators to respond in kind, the report says. The use of blunt force, in numbers and later in action, set a pitch of tension, in which the police and people’s rights were involved. The impression gained by the correspondent from the conduct seen was that the police had been briefed beforehand to expect the worst, and that they had been given instructions to be tough from the beginning. Society should be concerned that the rights of the police as individuals were respected. At the Auckland demonstrations the police were put in an invidious position where their rights were not respected.