tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8442430064359197279.post3039131488069207532..comments2024-03-26T10:03:51.827+13:00Comments on Karl du Fresne: Police captured by tick-the-boxes mentalityKarl du Fresnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05054853925940134404noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8442430064359197279.post-54318425129880337502008-06-18T14:08:00.000+12:002008-06-18T14:08:00.000+12:00Having worked as a prison officer, and done some w...Having worked as a prison officer, and done some wrestling with crims on the concrete floors of our prisons, I don't take kindly to armchair warriors, be they journalists or politiicans, volunteering any public servant for serious injury or death in the line of duty. <BR/><BR/>Never mind the risk to the public from armed police running around in such a situation as we saw in Manurewa would represent. A shooter on the loose, who knows where. <BR/><BR/>Those safety procedures are there to protect everyone: police and public. <BR/><BR/>The police did all the right things to prevent Joe Citizen or another police officer or ambulance staff being shot accidentally or on purpose. <BR/><BR/>The procedures they used have been compiled from the lessons learned from the deaths of "heroes" here in NZ and elsewhere. <BR/><BR/>Procedure is there to aid and clarify accountability. You stay inside procedure and the organisation is accountable and will stand by you. <BR/><BR/>Go outside procedure and it's YOUR ass on the line. You're the guy making it up as you go along. No one else can be responsible for freelancers - whether the outcomes are good or bad. <BR/><BR/>This is as it should be. It can't be any other way. NO public servant wants to die before the end of their shift and no one should expect them risk it. <BR/><BR/>The police cordoned off the area. The people going in converged at an agreed place with the right equipment and advanced from there. No one needs freelancing police shooting each other or any innocent person in the area - and there were many. <BR/><BR/>They went into an area where someone had already already been shot. That alone would make my ring tighten and no one would call me a coward and not get a reaction they deserved. <BR/><BR/>How do you tell an innocent person from the possible shooter? <BR/><BR/>You can't. <BR/><BR/>People criticising the response are on the wrong track. This is how it is. Maybe ambulances with armoured doors that can back up to a entrance and provide cover for armed ambulance staff are required.....with all the related protocols lined up. <BR/><BR/>Sorry, Karl. No editor or journalistist or politician is going to get me killed so they can speechify at my funeral on the same day as the victims, complete with flags, brass band, gun salute and my wailing family. <BR/><BR/>The best possible outcome takes time, unfortunately. Twenty-five minutes from first report to armed, co-ordinated response at a random location in a big city isn't bad at all. <BR/><BR/>That's just how it is when drunken, drugged idiots cut loose with firearms. Why risk adding the bodies of "heroes" to the pile.<BR/><BR/>I won't sign up for that. No one in their right mind would.Steve Withershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04221815213521767405noreply@blogger.com