A Show-Trial: In New Zealand?

With so many of the blocks already stacked in this wannabe socialist utopia of ours, according to one particular wag at that regular fountain of meandering philosophical inquiry, the local watering hole, we as a country may as well go all-in Stalin-esque and have ourselves a ‘Show Trial’ of sorts. It would be such a wonderful form of entertainment to distract the masses from the scorched-earth destruction of our economy in the name of a bad flu, and the blanket ineptitude on display from the student politicians and lefty nong-thinks now so unfortunately in power.

It was a plausible joke; the idea certainly has its merits, but implying any modern-day equivalence of present political controls to the cold, hardened, blood-stained regimes of Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Castro and other absolutely brutal ideologues of last century, is straight away to lose the debate by furlongs. The idea is ever so slightly ridiculous; regardless, the recent news from Hawera has me concerned for several reasons.

The unprecedented charging of three police officers with manslaughter over the death of a man held in a rural station-cell is alarming in this era of hyper-sensitivity towards matters of policing. My cynicism antennae are aroused, sensing something very wrong here. The reasoning behind the charges may be meritorious, or it may be ruinous, because we have a force of very good (by any standards) foot-soldiers: the good women and men in blue.

True, some are lazy, others stupid; some are thieves, others rapacious, because they are almost entirely composed of humans – and we people exhibit such qualities in spades. When given the power of the uniform, too many are happy to exploit that costume’s artificial material advantage. Nevertheless, it is somewhat a minor miracle that our New Zealand force bears a relatively inverse-proportionality of truly bad buggers to the wider community.

Whereas the higher-ups are distinctly less reliable and susceptible to all manner of political persuasion – it has always been thus, but from what I can recall from history, the modern era of sanctimony and superciliousness hasn’t, in my lifetime, been bettered, even during the unrest of ‘Eighty-one’.

The personal lives of three officers, and the reputation of our entire police force, are potentially ruined, for reasons we know not, but which I, for one, am intensely interested.

We need in this important case a measured and meaningful reporting of the proceedings against the Hawera three at a time when measured and meaningful reporting is so last-century: dismissed as redundant in the new age of un-reason, click-bait and hyperbole. The precursors do not augur well for the officers involved. Like it or not, this will be a political trial shaped as much in the court of public opinion as within the courthouse walls.

Jumping to huge lead in the sensationalism stakes was Newshub with a headline as unmeritorious and slanted as woesomely imaginable.

The brains trust of three, yes three ‘reporters’ sought out the most inappropriate person possible for comment on the charges, elevating that spokesperson to an entirely imaginary status born of failure to perform a fundamental fact-check: probably the result of a Twitter-search conducted in the short time available between selfies.

I will not speak of the past of the person quoted by Newshub and raised by them to considerable public notice as “founder” of the Independent Police Conduct Authority; suffice instead for Stuff to simply point out a judge’s remarks.

If Newshub is the sort and standard of reporting we can expect of the trial of the three officers, then buckle in, it’s going to be a rough ride on Lady Justice. The charges may be completely worthy, necessary, and cauterising. Alternatively, those individuals may be three simple sacrifices offered in appeasement by self-flagellating Wellington bureau-cops having as little actual real-life policing experience between them as they have empathy with the front line. Sadly, I strongly suspect the latter.

I sincerely hope this is not going to be a Show Trial.

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