Police operations in Christchurch
From:
Andrew Groom
Date:
2007 May 15 21:55 UTC
Short link
Hi Miles,
Well said ! A few extra comments below:
Miles Dalton wrote:
> While I agree that the party was out of control and should have been
> dispersed earlier, if we end up banning youth parties because of one
> youth then I feel that we have lost perspective and have truly become a
> society ruled by fear.
I completely agree. Also, to treat this as a "youth" issue is to obscure
the real issue. The people involved were adults and the situation should
have been handled as if it was any other gathering of, shall we say,
excitable adults.
> However, I also believe that when the tenants who lived in the house
> rang the police because they were worried about the amount of univited
> guests that had arrived and refused to leave, the police should have
> been straight around to disperse the party rather than waiting and
> assessing what the danger level was. The tenants and neighbours were
> scared and that should really have been enough for the police to act.
Has there been an official comment from the police on why the party
wasn't broken up ? I'm sure they had a good reason, and I suspect it was
lack of resources to handle such a large problem. However, I'd suggest
that it would have been worth diverting resources from elsewhere in the
city to deal with it, since probably many of the troublemakers from
other parts of the city were there anyway :-)
Perhaps the police should advertise the possibility that, should you
desire to hold a large party, the team from Operation Hammer may be one
of the uninvited guests.
Cheers, Andrew.
.