President ‘ashamed’ of police policy

Press, 13 January 1987, Page 6

President ‘ashamed’ of police policy

PA Wellington ; A new police policy to ; not answer alarms has 1 made the president of the Police Association, Mr < Keith Morrow, “ashamed t to be a police- 1 man.” 1 “I see this as the Gov- « ernment and the police i administrators putting t their hands in the air and 1 giving up,” Mr Morrow s said last evening. Mr Morrow said that r the Government and j police department “stand c indicted” over the policy, .t Mr Morrow said a t memorandum dated Janu- c ary 8 from the Commissioner of Police, Mr Ken a Thompson, to police dis- h trict commissioners gave fa

a more comprehensive and disturbing picture of the changes being made. The memo told district commissioners that raid alarms, such as those found in banks, would not be answered until it was established the alarm was not false. It quoted a false alarm rate of 99 per'cent for this type of alarm, said Mr Morrow. Community support and neighbourhood watch groups would be asked to check domestic alarms in their areas to ascertain if they were genuine, before calling the police. This would put civilian? at risk if they approached houses containing intruders, Mr Morrow slid.