by frog
By September this year, 16 people had died in 11 fatal police pursuits – already the worst year on record.
The Ministry of Truth Police have come up with a novel solution to such a tragic loss of life – banning “police pursuits”. They are not banning the actual high speed chases though. They are banning the use of the terms “pursuit” and “chase” in Police communications.
So the Police media releases will now read something like this:
Two men died in Christchurch last night after a stolen car travelling at high speeds crashed while fleeing Police. Officers in two Police cars had been cautiously monitoring the stolen vehicle…
It reminds me of the solution some wag came up with for our dirty rivers – rename all our rivers “drains”. Problem solved. No more polluted rivers!
Published in Environment & Resource Management | Justice & Democracy by frog on Mon, November 15th, 2010
Tags: police, police pursuits
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
I recall Bill Bryson mentioned the same thing in “Notes from a small Island”. When water from Brighton Beach in England continuously failed the health requirements for swimming, it was simply reclassified as a “non-bathing” beach. Problem solved
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Although I dont think actually banning pursuits is the answer, if anything they need to be given more power to end them quickly, rather than all the PC bull crap they have to follow that ends up prolonging such chases thus exposing people to risk for longer.
If the criminal dies whilst fleeing, even better, less cost to the tax payer, and one less low life on the planet.
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The police have rightly labelled the practise for what it is. The responsibility purely and solely lies with the fleeing driver.
I hope that the crown prosecutors start laying manslaughter charges against those drivers that flee and kill.
While the Greens complain about the situation they have, as per usual, not providing any viable, workable and legally enforceable alternative.
This is just political grandstanding by frog and the Greens for if they were serious about the police not following and apprehending fleeing drivers, they surely would have a private members bill in the system to outlaw that practise.
So go on frog and the Green MP’s. draft a private members bill to that effect. Lets see the political mettle of the Greens.
[frog: I wasn't suggesting that Police should never pursue an offender fleeing in a motor vehicle, in case you or other readers got that impression. I was just suggesting they should call it what it is, rather than engaging in Orwellian newspeak.]
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I agree with Gerrit, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for police to phrase it as fleeing, as had the now-criminal stopped when asked there wouldn’t have been a pursuit/fatality in the first place. I also think any sentencing – if they haven’t already killed themselves on the run – should reflect the fact they fled.
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Here’s a solution Gerrit! Monitor the offenders until such a time as an arrest can be made without the need for a dangerous police pursuit. Less deaths because of over zealous police who ram offending vehicles or make offenders drive unsafely because they are being chased would be a result. The current scenario is that an offender is spotted by the police, a pursuit ensues and then the offenders crash and die. Both parties are at fault for the cause and effect scenario. The technology exists for such changes to police conduct such as surveillance until a safe arrest can be made. Alternatives to the outdated and old fashioned police chase can be very effective without the need for loss of life. That would be the sensible thing to do. Or we could have more laws and silly changes to terminology so that the Police state can continue to have a negative impact on our society.
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@Gerrit 12:43 PM
I don’t think this is something that can be legislated for. The Police have to be given operational discretion as to when to pursue and when not to.
The recent Police review of their pursuit policy recommends more training for staff involved in pursuits, limiting the number of vehicles involved in pursuits, expanding the abandonment criteria, and abandoning pursuits once an offender’s identity was known and they could be apprehended later.
That’s all good stuff, and will hopefully save lives. But banning the use of the terms “pursuit” and “chase” in Police comms will save no lives and is just a public relations exercise to make the Police look better if they make a mistake in starting or continuing a pursuit in circumstances that increases, rather than reduces, the threat to public safety.
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The real tragedy is that its often entirely innocent motorists or pedestrians that die.
We know that if a Police pursuit occurs, bad things can happen, and thus our Police service and the Police Minister must be entirely accepting that non-involved people will die. That’s a terrible state of affairs.
And I’m with Todd; this is the 21st century, and yet we still seem to be doing things the Keystone Kops way. Surely some progress has been made in a century.
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frog, they are calling it for what it is. A fugitive fleeing from the lawful (still is lawful for the police to ask you to stop, no?) command to stop.
Those who think that simply recording the cars details and apprehending at leisure the driver later will find that it is not a viable working or legally binding operational method (police will have to prove who the driver was at the time the fleeing took place).
To carry out the placid pursuit of a fleeing driver it is not the car identity (and ownership) that is legally the “target” but the driver.
Come up with a foolproof and legally binding driver identification system and I agree the fleeing driver should not and need not be pursued.
dbuckley,
Total rubbish, the fleeing driver is 100% responsible and our justice system needs to prosecute to the max those fleeing drivers.
As I said, come up with a 100% legal way to indentify 100% the driver who is fleeing and yes, then we dont need the keystone cops routine.
Till then Police here and around the world will always do their upmost to pursue a fleeing driver.
Ands long may it continue.
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Why is it possible for civilian cars to drive faster than the speed limit? Scooters have a speed limiter on them, why don’t cars? Who had the stupid idea of selling cars that have the capability to travel at 200 kph in the first place?
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The other issue here is that Police will be so used to using the new terminology that if by an amazing turn of events a police officer is required to undergo trial for lets say ramming a car off the road at high speeds causing death, using the words “fleeing” and “monitoring” will help the officers case.
Any good police investigation would usually get to the bottom of who the driver was. Police are trained to identify people from long distances. Saving lives is more important than filling jail cells, giving the cops an adrenalin rush and gaining taxes anyway.
There is no evidence to show that arrest rates would be lower because Police pursuits are called off. Long distance monitoring or a follow up investigation being conducted would be the best option to saving innocent and offenders lives.
Gerrit is obviously from the wild-west era and places little value on “criminals” lives. Perhaps he has an otherworldly source of information far beyond the rest of us mere mortals. Reminds me of the collateral damages argument. Yeeha!
Of course the fight or flight response is often the reason for running. Some people run even when they aren’t undertaking crime. The police can install a fear response in even the most law-abiding citizen. They like it.
Perhaps the oil crises will resolve the issue, we will all have little bubble cars that can only go 50.
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Todd says, ” Police are trained to identify people from long distances.”
How’s this done Todd?
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Gerrit says, “frog, they are calling it for what it is. A fugitive fleeing from the lawful (still is lawful for the police to ask you to stop, no?) command to stop.”
Were they not ‘calling it for what it is” before now?
They’ve changed the nomenclature Gerrit. Why do you think they did that?
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Rimu
Around here a 200 KPH vehicle IS a bit redundant. A Porsche isn’t ever able to be “let out” and several other brands are little more than ways to keep score in the great wealthier than thou competition.
However, there are times and places where faster is better. Passing another vehicle in a place where we still have 2 lanes divided by some paint, is one in which I would not, under any circumstances, accept that my car has a limiter that prevents me from going as fast as it can, as every moment spent in the passing maneuver is time that everyone is at risk.
Which really begs the question of why we have such 2 lane un-divided roads as our primary highways between here and there.
They are inherently extremely unsafe, and the speed limit on them, 62.5 MPH is higher than is permitted on any equivalent road back in the USA.
Seriously bad news.
However, limiting the car’s performance is usually a bad idea from a safety perspective. I grant that some have rather excessive top-end capabilities, but the “speed-limit” is (as far as I can tell), a uniform 100 KPH because they didn’t want to make any signs for any other numbers. It most assuredly does not have anything to do with the safe speed on any given stretch of road, and the enforcement is so uneven as to be mind-boggling.
In the past 3 months 21 out of 22 observed speed enforcement operations have been on the limited access divided highways here between Wellington and Paraparaumu. Only one has been on the two lane stretches of that road, and none have been observed anywhere else at all. That’s my personal observation BTW.
This should be telling you something about drivers and cops. In the places where it is safe to go faster, they do, and when it is time to slow down, they do, and when the police want to give tickets they go where it is safe to drive at 120 KPH and hand out tickets for 110… because that’s how to collect the money and justify their existence… because there is not a damned lick of sense in the way the traffic speed laws are being set or enforced here.
Believe me, I’ve played “cops and speeders” for money for a long time. The fix is in here.
BJ
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Hm! By looking at them. It is my understanding that you can see a person through the windows in most cars. A police identification is still upheld in a court of law if I’m not mistaken. I think it would be on a very rare occasion that an offender is not identified in the first instance and then not tracked down in the second. Most cities where the pursuits take place still have police choppers. There are numerous ways to apprehend without requiring dangerous high speed car chases through densely populated areas that endanger innocent peoples lives.
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Are BJ, technically you aren’t allowed to exceed the speed limit in an overtaking maneuver (Unless you coach the rugby team or something like that), so the relevancy of the question remains.
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robertguyton,
Why the change? Push the responsibility back where it belongs.
Hard to 100% identify a person in my car. Tinted window all round.
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Are modern digital cameras able to record more detail than the human eye?
A quick pic of an ‘about to flee’ or ‘might flee if pushed’ driver could save a lot of anguish. Sort of a painless tazer (Stop or I’ll shoot …with my Canon).
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“…Todd says, ” Police are trained to identify people from long distances.”
How’s this done Todd?
..”
they are fitted with bionic eyes…at police training college…
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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they are fitted with bionic eyes…in the back of their heads, just as teachers have traditionally been fitted.
Gerrit – “Push the responsibility back where it belongs.”
That’s not the issue. The change of wording is a public relations exercise. It’s all about perception. They are attempting to dodge bad public perception.
The behaviour of the escaping speedster will be entirely unaffected by the changes the police (Judith Collins) are making. There will be no change to the number of pursued drivers killed. Fleeing drivers. Whatever.
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I rarely get above 120 kph when performing a passing manoeuvre.
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Whoa! That’s very fast for a bicycle rimu!
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Todd
There are laws I regard as reasonable, and there are laws I simply ignore because they are stupid. I will take my chances on paying a fine rather than risking my life with a goddammed governor keeping my car from going faster if I need it to do so. I don’t often need that capability, but that’s not the same as never.
So if someone comes up with a proposal to put such a device on my car, it IS coming off and they are going to find me one of their worst enemies.
…and if someone has the notion that this might be a good policy for the party to espouse because after all we hate cars and it might save us petrol, they can kiss any chance at even 5% good-bye.
BJ
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robertguyton
What “bad” public perception? Any links?
Public perception (in my opinion) is that the fleeing driver gets away with manslaughter far too easily.
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How would speed limiting cars to 100kmh have reduced this toll of 16 deaths when most of these fatal pursuits were on 50 kmh roads? Or are you advocating Maurice Williamson’s electronic road tolling scheme where every car is tracked by GPS and therefore the speed limiter can be automatically controlled by a big brother system.
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Generally not in this country Rimu.
I don’t see much point in trying a passing maneuver on SH1 in Pukerua Bay. Non-existent opportunity… no idea whether the car would do 140 in anything like reasonable time, but when I pass I want the largest possible delta velocity I can generate as I am passing, and I want any guy passing me to do exactly the same thing, NOT wasting time in the risk zone.
Goes with a bunch of other bad NZ driving habits relating to merging with traffic and making room for drivers merging. Being from LA it is to me, a source of pain and amusement all at once… but not surprising as there are so few places to learn the skill. Then there are the traffic circles, which are often little more than paint-spots in an intersection. If there isn’t room to do it properly, the required control device is a traffic LIGHT.
Probably too American.
BJ
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Be interesting if the police start taking photographs of offenders how long it is before people from the civlib brigade will call this an infringement of the right to privacy.
Mind you the back of my head look like the front so Police wont have any trouble with my identity. Bit different from the goodlooking people with plenty of hair.
Hard to photograph a fleeing driver from the front if they are fleeing.
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@Gerrit 3:46 PM
Perhaps this bad public perception, Gerrit:
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Gerrit – the back of your head looks like the front?
This is disturbing news indeed.
Your thinking too, is backwards,it seems to me.
Here, we are debating, not whether police should pursue or not, but changes they’ve made to the way they describe incidents where a car flees from/is pursued by another.
You’ve not made clear your thoughts about the need for the description to change, imo.
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Photographing speeding motorists is already commonplace Gerrit.
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I posted this at 12.43
My position on the matter is crystal clear. The Police are right to relabel the situation as a fleeing driver operation as from the previous utilised pursuit tag. And 100% right to place responsibility on the fleeing driver for any and all accidents caused.
My sense of humour has deserted me I guess. I was trying to imply that taking photographs of offenders in a fleeing driver situation is useless as the only view is of the drivers back of his/her head.
In my case that is OK (that was the joke part) but in others, better looking then me, it would not be admisable in court room to identify a person by the profile and shape in a photograph from behind.
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robertguyton: “That’s not the issue. The change of wording is a public relations issue. It’s all about perception. They are attempting to dodge bad public perception.”
And what is wrong the police wishing to do so? The MSM enjoys sensationalising fleeing criminal stories by reporting that the chasing police caused the accidents. So the police have every right to try and point the negative perceptions in the direction they belong.
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The chaser and the chased. Can’t have one without the other.
Pushed too far by fear of the police?
Nah!
Young girl, over the blood alcohol limit, panicked into fleeing?
Nah!
Driver pressured by passengers into flooring it?
Nah!
Yours is a very black and white view Gerrit.
Never the less, that’s not my point.
Changes to how things are described is.
Looks as though I’ve exhausted my argument though, so I’ll flee.
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robertguyton,
Yes to identify number plates and car make/model/colour information.
Dont think driver photogreaphic image information is ever used (not to my knowledge) but you need to be mindful that speeding cameras are usually from the front (though my one and only camara fine was a photograph from the rear and a post mounted camera).
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robertguyton:
Pushed to far by fear of the police?
Young girl, over the blood alcohol limit, paniced into fleeing?
Driver pressured by passengers into flooring it?
In each case the driver has fled, so it makes sense for it to be accurately reported as such, doesn’t it?
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Decanker observes that police are ‘changing perceptions’ and this is my point exactly, I should thank decank.
Gerrit – the speed camera shot of you taken from behind could have been used to positively identify you, according to your 3:50 post.
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decank – in each case the police have pursued the vehicle and it would make sense to report it as such, wouldn’t it?
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“Police pursue fleeing vehicle”
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robertguyton,
it did
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decanker – I admire your ability to broker agreement and ..I agree!
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Ah! BJ, I totally agree with you. Some extra power is sometimes required to avoid dangerous situations on the road. However some vehicles are excessively overpowered. There was talk a while ago of limiting young drivers from having souped vehicles which in my mind would save a lot of lives, including some of my friends who were too young to handle all that horse power.
Police caused vehicle to flee?
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Does anyone here really think a death sentence imposed by police pursuit is appropriate for being a dopey teenager. I know I only survived my teenage years more by good luck than judgment.
I suggest you read the Mum whose 4 year old was killed She had the best explanation of the issues. She showed much more maturity and judgment than the usual commentators as well as being an example to us all..
There has been several pursuits where they could have caught the driver later without pushing them to higher speeds.
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Well, they’re criminals after all.
We should give the police access to predator drones to track them down with, and hellfire missiles to make sure they never offend our delicate sensibilities again. That’ll teach ‘em.
BJ
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Lock them up as soon as they are born… that would solve the problem.
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Todd. I am not sure about the power thing. I knew a few teenagers in my youth who managed to wright themselves off in Anglia’s, Skoda’s and Austin’s.
Power can get you out of trouble just as much as it can get you into it.
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Want them to be safe drivers, make sure they get some time on a wet skidpad with bald tires. Before they get licensed they need to know what the limits look like. How to get OUT of trouble. An icy empty parking lot in winter might do down south.
The other thing to teach is a lot harder. Probably impossible. Teaching a teenager or anyone else for that matter, how to PAY ATTENTION to the road is a bit of a mystery to me. Some people “get it” others will try to text, or read a book.
…then there’s the blood-alcohol
jokelimit.BJ
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Here’s a solution Gerrit! Monitor the offenders until such a time as an arrest can be made without the need for a dangerous police pursuit. Less deaths because of over zealous police who ram offending vehicles or make offenders drive unsafely because they are being chased would be a result. The current scenario is that an offender is spotted by the police, a pursuit ensues and then the offenders crash and die. Both parties are at fault for the cause and effect scenario. The technology exists for such changes to police conduct such as surveillance until a safe arrest can be made. Alternatives to the outdated and old fashioned police chase can be very effective without the need for loss of life. That would be the sensible thing to do. Or we could have more laws and silly changes to terminology so that the Police state can continue to have a negative impact on our society.
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BJ. Defensive driving courses cover most of the things required to make a safe driver. Unfortunately they are not compulsory.
The defensive driving course combined with the one Beamer do, for owners, would be ideal for new drivers.
We could all do with a refresher at regular intervals also.
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Photographing to identify the driver isn’t reliable. In many cases, the car is stolen, and under these conditions, the driver will often try to make it harder to be identified, such as by wearing a hoodie.
It usually takes a while to get a helicopter in position and most chases last only a minute or two, so that option isn’t very realistic.
Perhaps the drone is the best bet, but without the missiles.
Trevor.
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Emotional imaturity on your part Kerry to bring a respectful and heartfelt plea for understanding and offer of forgivess from a thoroughly brave and couragious woman as a solution to what to call fleeing or pursuited drivers.
Shame.
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No. It is entirely relevant, as she said, the degree of culpability was low even though the consequences were horrendous.
She was saying the actual crime was minor even though the consequences for her family, and I suspect the driver, were terrible.
Have you never driven too fast or had a moment when driving when you say to yourself. “I should not have done that”. That applies to many teenage drivers who do not consider the possible consequences of their actions. Those who advocate pursuit regardless of circumstances are effectively asking for a death sentence for a crime that is often no more than teenage stupidity or thoughtlessness.
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Kerry,
Where does teenage stupidity end and maturity and responsibilty start?
I say when driving license is issued.
Have a think about some of these cases
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10633370
20 year old female killer.
Mind you I suppose this little terror was just “teenage stupidity”.
Lucky you did not meet him coming in the opposite direction.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/2347115/Teen-driver-had-no-licence
Shows that photographing the driver would have been useless in this case (no database records or photoID).
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Gerrit. Goes with all the 50 year old drivers of 4WD,s I see while driving as they go around corners on two wheels on the wrong side of the road.
I hope I never meet one of them coming the other way either.
Maturity seems to come rather late for some.
Should they be put to death also? Maybe an automatic drone?
Expecting teenagers to do better than the adults around them is a bit of an ask. We all need to take driving much more seriously.
All I am advocating for police chases is more commonsense than some police have shown recently.
The age and training that should be required for a license is another issue.
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Ok BJ – limit civilian cars to 140 then. Any limit will do, so long as it means that escape from the police (who would have no such limits) is impossible, thus removing the incentive to attempt to flee in the first place.
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American police carry 45s that they call the “car stopper” or similar. Discourages teenagers taking on the police.
However, it suggests a less deadly alternative. Why not a dart gun (like vets and zookeepers use) that fires a GPS tracking device into the back of the car.
The GPS tracks the car and can soon be road blocked.
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Gerrit – did you read the article you linked to
(20 year old female killer) and by read I mean with your brain engaged?
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Kids are dying on our roads due to stupidity more than ever before.
It is a reflection on the changing values of society and evidence that it is a negative, regressive change.
The police are now expected to pick up the responsibility of parents that should know better.
The carnage will increase until people can’t bear it and then perhaps people will revisit these ‘values’.
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The police have a political agenda. That is the only reason why they would need to use special language to frame issues.
We don’t allow public servents working for most government departments to have a political agenda. Why do we allow the police to?
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robertguyton says “They’ve changed the nomenclature Gerrit. Why do you think they did that?”
Pretty obvious.
Because when someone does something illegal, flees from police, deliberately drives through a red light at high speed and kills two innocent people – neanderthals automatically try to transfer the blame away from the killer to the police “pursuit”.
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BJ & Kerry, The Graduated Driver License System was designed with reduced minimum graduating periods for drivers who get professional during the learner period and who take defensive or advanced driver training during the restricted period. I don’t know if that is still the case but the stats for drivers involved or killed in fatal crashes shows a 50% reduction starting with teens between 1987-1993 and progressively moving up the age groups. The fact that there was only a 10%-20% reduction in passenger fatalities in these age groups during the same periods indicates that drivers over 35 are now the biggest killers of those under 30.
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OK Rimu.. I think I can live with the notion that the cops have some unfair advantages over the rest of us at a level like that. We could negotiate the level, and it makes some sense.
Keeping the limiters in place of course, given the typical motorhead’s propensity to remove such things, would be a bit of a challenge. I wouldn’t be bothering to remove it myself but it mostly would not reach the target perpetrators. Just the casual runners in Dad’s borrowed car.
Prefer to have a police helicopters. They add to the ability of the police to respond quickly in a lot of other situations… and the perp does not have the ability to outrun it (High powered car on a straight road might but roads that straight don’t exist here).
I rather like Owen’s notion of “darting” the car so that the miscreant has to stop to remove the dart in order not to be followed, but I would expect that the extreme cases are going to just try to go faster so as to get enough of a lead to do just that. Assuming one could get close enough to fire the dart and it was fairly reliably non-lethal.
A remote kill switch that the police could activate would just be another toy that the motorheads de-activate.
A more complex dart arrangement that deploys (from side or rear) a tire deflator that is active against the rear tires. The sort of target, trigger and deployment mechanism intelligence that could do that is annoyingly difficult, but of all the means I can think of, this would be the one that would most assuredly stop the perpetrators from going anywhere fast. Also it would have considerable export value if it could be made to function.
Could be fun to make it work.
BJ
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Robert Guyton
Read the article but did you engage your think tank?
What part of
do you not understand as a fleeing driver?
Still a 20 year old female killer.
To busy on her cell phone after the crash to check on the condition (if she was capable being drunk) of the other driver
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Yet it would all be useless against an idiot like that. For them the best trick is to keep the car from working.
A pre-emptive procedure is called for here, as she actually had to stop to blow into the machine, and there was an opportunity to assert control over the vehicle.
Just make a little “trap” part of the breath stop. Ask people to turn the car off when they blow into the machine. Have the spikes deployed at the least suspicion that they might be drunk (ie stupid). If they start before they are given permission to proceed at that point, they have themselves to blame… or a spray-paint applicator that covers the windshield if they move. Even a drunk won’t drive far completely blind.
I always feel sorrier for victims of idiots. At least it is not like the USA where the drunk and stupid are also apt to be armed.
BJ
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photonz1 claims the police are changing the words they use in the media because of ‘neanderthals’.
High level response there photonz1.
Gerrit- the officer on the scene describes her as a ’silly, silly girl’.
You call her a ‘killer’.
Both may be true but words are important and your choice of them exposes something about the way you view your fellow man (in this case, girl).
Officer on the scene .v. blog commenter.
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Person kills another is labelled a killer.
Police officer on the scene was not aware at the point in time he made the comment that the innocent person was dead or gravely injured.
I suppose you are going to call the killer a victim?
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Well Gerrit, let’s see. She’s the daughter of my very good old friend Pete.
What do you expect me to call her?
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Robert Guyton,
You may call her anything you like, I call her a drunken killer.
I’m sure she is a very nice person who now must take responsibility for her actions.
Her friends and family no doubt will support her to face up and bear that responsibility.
For she not only has killed a mother and hurt her family, she has also bought shame and suffering on her own.
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“Person kills another is labelled a killer.”
Are they?
Soldiers too?
The policeman who accidentally shot the delivery van driver?
All the same are they?
You call everyone who is responsible for another person’s death a ‘killer’?
I can see that technically you could, but there’s more to that when it comes to chosing your words.
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And surely, if we are to be pedantic about words, ‘pursue’ describes accurately what police do when someone is fleeing.
Their reason for avoiding its use is the subject for this post, ne ra?
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The evasion of responsibility is a problem in our society. So used to being anonymous and so used to being immune from the consequences of our actions we are, that when someone does it is a notable event.
Responsibility is something you TAKE.
Can’t be given to you or forced on you.
In NZ however, it is something you avoid.
I can’t work out how one teaches people to actually take responsibility. Not sure how the “Boy Scout” attitude to things is fostered.
What I am sure of is that its lack has a lot to do with the deterioration of our civil society.
Running from the police is just one of the forms it takes, and despite the consequences, only one of the minor forms.
BJ
(Former Boy Scout)
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BJ, you’re right on the money.
Avoiding responsibility seems to be a national pass time in NZ.
When I had my ‘boy racer’ incident (I was the victim) the police officer said that this sort of behaviour is not just from one part of society but right across the board. In fact as far as the boy racer culture goes it is often the more wealthy families that produce such individuals.
It is down to parenting, consumer culture, and a lack of empathy for others, and a screwed up set of values.
I think it is also down to what I think Sapient calls “cognitive style” , there appears to be a fundamental flaw in the way many people are taught to think.
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Believing that the problem derives from a dysfunctional system whether it is a lack of training through Boy Scouts etc is not what we need to focus on at present. Although I am all for fixing “evasion of responsibility” by encouraging values and a normal coexistence that every New Zealander should have available; this is a long term solution to a problem that has had an extended time to gestate and grow into the current harmful dynamic we see today.
Social engineering though negative impacting policies have changed things for the worse. Only through positive policy changes will we eventually see any progression to this part of the dysfunctional system. Unfortunately the current politicians in power seem to want to entrench that dysfunction. This myopic stance is consistent with a lack of fucus presently being expressed whereby the blame for the problem has been shifted onto a particular portion of society that we have little chance of changing in the short term.
Leaving us with but one solution: It is the mechanism that we need to focus on and how best to change the function of that mechanism so that lives are not lost.
Todd: Not a Boy Scout, but can still tie a good knot.
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Thats actually very untrue.
The labels are applied by the media, and they have distinct sets of labels depending on how the media want the event to be perceived.
For example, Halatau Naitoko was “killed” by a policeman, whereas the Bains were “murdered” by (insert your chosen viewpoint here).
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