THAT'S WHY THEY'RE CALLED DICKS

I was just reading of the cock-ups and bad behaviour of the police over the years. There are the big stories of course like the Arthur Allan Thomas, Roastbusters and Louise Nicholas cases but must be thousands of others.

I haven't had any dealings with police detectives on the receiving end as I'm a good boy but have over the years had dealings with them for other reasons.

Now whilst I am a supporter of the New Zealand Police and frankly wish that government would provide more support for them (and not in the form of the duplicitous fat slag who is Minister of Police) I have to admit that a lot of them can do better.

Pay peanuts I suppose and you get monkeys.

Here are some of my encounters.

My earliest recollection of contact with the police was when I was about 10. I'd been to the 'Murder House' (Wellington's school dental clinic in Willis Street) and left my bike outside. When I came out it was gone. I walked home and my mother phoned the police. It would be unbelievable today but then (about 1962) they put out an alert and sure enough two plainclothes coppers arrived at home with my bike. They'd put out an APB and tracked down the scrote who turned out to be 14 y.o. known to them.
 These  guys are on my 'good' list.

My next encounter was when I was about 13 and, after rifle shooting practise my brother cousin and me were running across Courtenay Place when a cop car with uniformed police stopped us and aggressively grilled as as to why we were out so late etc.
I thought that these were the bad guys,

Bad Liszt

 although nowadays it would probably be good to see the police doing this.

Next encounter was when I was flatting near Aro Street. When returning from a night out we saw a burglar climbing out of our house.
I stopped the car and gave chase, tackling him to the ground and hauled him back to the house. When the police patrol came (about 1AM) the sergeant, a woman, said did we want to give the guy a belting before they took him away. I declined and thought that was a bit naff. This was 1978. I thought she was one of the bad guys.

Another was in 1983. I was managing a wines and spirit store in Manurewa. I had been called out in the middle of the night as the alarms had gone off. I got there and looked around and surprised a couple of burglars who took off. When the cops arrived (a couple of  world-weary 'Ds' I went with them in their car to trawl the streets looking for the runaways. Probably just as well that we didn't find them as these guys would have taken to them with their truncheons no doubt. Exciting though. These cops were a bit of bad and good combined.



Also in 1983 I learned that a couple of uniformed cops, in the middle of the night, crept around the back of a local electrical shop, poked a hose through a back window and flooded the premises.
It turned out that the owner of the shop was having a relationship with a woman who worked in the local newspaper shop. She had recently divorced a cop. The guys who flooded the shop were this cops pals. They were never prosecuted.
These were the bad guys.

In about 1999 in Christchurch, while driving through the Rakaia Gorge we saw a guy acting suspiciously. He had stopped his car by a rest area overlooking the gorge and when we came along he took off rapidly. We didn't get his registration number but did get a reasonable look at him. When the following week a body of a missing person was found in the gorge area I went to the police and reported our experience and a description of the suspicious guy. These cops, 'Ds' were of the useless variety. Admittedly they could have been swamped with sightings and reports but it all seemed like too much work for them. Their lights were on but no-one is home. They only took rudimentary information from me and never did a follow-up. The case is still unsolved. These guys were the bad ones.

In 2001 when my brother went missing, presumed drowned in Wellington Harbour, I had lots of dealings with the police and one detective in particular. He was adamant that my brother could not have drowned in the harbour as divers had gone down at Chaffers Marina where he was last sighted and found nothing. He refused to listen to my belief that a body could be dragged by currents. I took to going out on the harbour on a kayak, criss-crossing a probable location but found nothing (on or near the surface). Three weeks later my brother's body was found washed up on rocks at Frank Kitts Park, across the harbour from Chaffers Marina.
This detective is in my bad books.



In 2006 a uniformed police sergeant came to the door to tell us that The Old Girl's father had been knocked down and killed. He gave the news in a caring and gentle way and waited with me until The Old Girl arrived home. He was one of the good guys.

I have other stories but in general, in my experience, the uniformed police have proven to be more reliable than the detectives. In my opinion they should raise the remuneration and ultimately the calibre of these people.