@gt12 said in Veitch is done:

Firstly, Veitch is a FW.

But responding to the current discussion, as someone who has had an abusive partner, I can only say that I had to constantly remember not to return fire because I knew I’d get dragged off (and kicked out of the country).

Ridiculously, it took me quite some time to realize that the behavior was a pattern and that it wouldn’t change.

Luckily, I also knew that my actions reflected my choices. For that reason, regardless of the circumstances, she would have to be armed for me to fire away, and for that I can’t really see clear to give Veitch any room here.

I too had an abusive partner years ago. I was a young fella a long way from home and I had no idea how to cope. I was never physically hurt, but fuck me the emotional shit was out of this world. This girl made me the angriest I have ever been in my life. She knew the buttons to push and she wouldn't let go. I would often cop it for something as trivial as walking into a room with a smile on my face. I would try to walk away from her but she would follow and keep going at me. I found out during that relationship that I would never hit a woman because if I was capable of it I surely have belted her. The relationship ended for other unrelated reasons, but I still wonder what would have happened if we stayed together longer.

She told me her last partner threatened and attacked her with a knife and I started to understand why as our relationship progressed. She did me a favour in the long run, my Crazy Lady Radar is finely tuned. Trust me, it's all in their eyes and their hair if you know what to look for.

My experience is so common. Every day I go to DVs where the female says one thing and the male says another thing, or doesn't say anything at all. I have lost count of the times I have been told by the male that he and she had been arguing and she would not let it go. He has tried walking away but she has followed him and said something that made him snap. "You'll never get to see the kids!" is common. He punches a hole in the wall, or gives her a push, and suddenly we turn up and we are dragging him away.

These things build, the frustrations grow and tolerance levels drop over time. A bit like Chinese water torture I suppose. One drop seems trivial but when you are exposed to a drop over and over again sooner or later you are going to lose it.

In Queensland the law is set up to view the female as the victim. As first response officers we are trained to determine who is 'most in need of protection'. And guess who is usually deemed as 'most in need of protection'? Yep, the female. All through our training the aggrieved (victim) is the female and the respondent (abuser) is the male. As males in these training sessions we speak up but we are talked down by the desk bound females running the course. On the plus side, female colleagues are starting to speak up as well, but they too are talked down by the facilitators.

Every DV we go to we are obliged to record the details on the computer system and we have to designate an aggrieved and a respondent. Most of the time we have conflicting versions. Earlier I said we are trained to view things as who is 'most in need of protection'. Parity disparity in terms of strength is most often used as a way of determining 'most in need of protection', so given the male is almost always stronger than the female the male is recorded as the respondent.

Policy makers, law makers and other stake holders use police statistics to further the agenda they are pushing. If the stats are not accurately recording what is actually happening between couples how can the policies and laws be effective?

We have many support agencies we can refer females of DV to. Support agencies for men? Yes there are one or two. But they are set up first and foremost to deal with males as the respondent, to help the male deal with his anger issues and violence. There is bugger all help out there for male victims. If you are a male, and you are getting abused, you are all but on your own.

I can’t help but wonder how many male suicides, how many family tragedies where the male kills himself and the kids, and how many murders of wives/partners are the result of DV where the female has been a psychological abuser and the male had nowhere to go for help, nowhere to go where he would be listened to and taken seriously.

I said in an earlier post that I could go on. I guess I just did and there is plenty more that I could ramble on about. This subject is close to my heart. I have been on the receiving end of DV and I have investigated DV. I am frustrated as hell because as a society we are getting it wrong, and while we are getting it wrong people are suffering.

It sucks that I feel I have to say this last bit, but…What I wrote above is not meant to be a reference to the Veitch case.

@jegga said in Alternative needed from the absolute crap of stuff.co.nz:

Ffs stuff

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/109924118/the-faces-of-fatal-police-chases-teens-make-up-half-of-crash-victims

For most of my fifteen years as a first response copper in Qld I have been navigating a restrictive pursuit policy. Gradually over the years more and more restrictions have been placed on police, leading to what we effectively have now – a no pursuit policy. This is not strictly true, police are allowed to pursue if there is a proven imminent threat to life (not allowed to use officer instinct) and the risks of not pursuing outweigh the risks of pursuing. Without having the policy in front of me to quote, the way it is written there are very few scenarios that would allow police to pursue in accordance with the pursuit policy. Instructions from the police union are very clear – do not pursue because if it goes wrong the officers involved risk having the book thrown at them, criminally and civilly.

So how did Qld get to this point? We followed the same path NZ seems to be going along. There would be pursuits where the fleeing motorist crashed and died and the media would report them. There would be sounds bites from a member of the public or a family member saying if police hadn’t pursued little Johnny would still be alive. Channel Nine and the Courier Mail were two media outlets that couldn’t resist being vocal in their opposition towards pursuits. As more people died during pursuits the State Coroner started pointing the finger at police. It all came to a head a few years ago when a school girl (thirteen I think) was struck and killed by a fleeing driver as she walked home from school.

Early in my career (when we still pursued) I experienced the wrath of an old lady following a pursuit. My partner and I had been patrolling through a petrol station when a vehicle caught our eye. It was being driven by a male and there was a female in the passenger seat. We attempted to intercept the vehicle but the driver fled. We pursued for about fifteen minutes (that is actually a long time for a pursuit) before the vehicle lost control and wrecked it’s tyres on a gutter. The driver decamped on foot and we eventually ran him down. Upon walking him back to our police vehicle we were set upon by an angry older female. While she was spraying vitriol at us I saw a younger female standing behind her holding a baby. Then it dawned on me. The old lady was the grandmother of the baby, the younger female was the female who had been the passenger in the fleeing vehicle and the baby belonged to the female passenger and the male driver. The baby had been in the vehicle during the pursuit. The old lady was giving it to us, no holds barred. “How dare you chase a car while there was a baby in it” or words to that effect. I recall the pure hatred in her eyes and the spittle coming from her mouth as she unleashed on us. In her mind we had put her baby grandchild at risk by pursuing her son in-law and daughter. There were two people who knew there was a baby present during that pursuit and those two people were not in the pursuing police car. If we had a known there was a baby in the car that day we would not have pursued, but there was no way in hell we were going to convince the grandmother of this. And it was all because the driver had a suspended licence.

Nowadays we have effectively handed over the streets. Gangs of youths go on their crime sprees in stolen vehicles and we are virtually powerless to stop them. They drive around like fluffybunnies. It seems like nary a shift goes by without an instance of a vehicle failing to pull over for police. Stolen vehicles are seen roaming the streets every night, but there are restrictions placed on us that can stop us even attempting to intercept those stolen vehicles. It has come to a point where I (and numerous over officers I have spoken to) think twice about patrolling for a stolen vehicle that has been reported to us for fear of things going wrong, our every move scrutinised and us being hung out to dry. More often than not, we keep well away from the area the stolen car is in.

I haven’t seen any stats, but anecdotally it seems like instances of vehicles being driven directly at police have increased since the restrictive pursuit policy. The grubs know that if they are being closed in on by police all they have to do is get out of the immediate area and they will be home and dry. They will do anything to get away.

People say why don’t police arrest the driver later? It’s not that easy. A lot of the cars are stolen and even if you recognise the driver you still have to convince a magistrate. And that is very hard when all you had was a fleeting glimpse as the car sped away. If the cars aren’t reported stolen at the time of an evade, you can bet your arse they will be reported shortly afterwards. Old matey drives off from police and then shits himself thinking police got his number plate. No worries, all old matey needs to do is dump the car somewhere and report his car stolen. Tell police he must have left his front door unlocked and some grub came in and got the car keys and stole the car. It’s pretty bloody hard to prove otherwise.

It has been many years since somebody has been killed during a police pursuit in Queensland. I am conflicted as to whether police should be pursuing with the way society is today. I make it quite clear to younger officers, don’t fucking pursue. It is not worth your job, your house, and your freedom. On the one hand the roads have turned into a free passage for the grubs and it fucking bugs me. I could provide examples of grubs that have been in police sights, have been allowed to get away because of the pursuit policy and have subsequently caused injury or worse to innocent people. On the other hand, no innocent parties have been killed during pursuits. I couldn’t give a shit if the fleeing grubs kill themselves, but I care about the innocent people who are hit by these grubs. Innocent people acceptable collateral damage? What if that person is one of your loved ones? Still acceptable?

And there is one last powerful motivating factor for police departments around the world to head towards a restrictive pursuit policy. They are scared of getting sued when things go wrong.

@NTA said in Happiness Scale:

@Crazy-Horse I'm absolutely fine if she wants to bring her hot divorced friend in to spice things up.

He would probably love to join you and your wife too. Go for it!

@barbarian said in Aussie Cricket:

What a great series.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I am tempted to say this is the best series since 2005.

I can feel her pain. I get described as the bald guy all the time. It hurts because I just want to be treated like everyone else. Bald guys have feelings too. To make me feel better I take it out on red heads, especially the balding ginger at work. Loser.

Finlay is big trouble I think. Being a ginger this is the opportunity they would have been waiting for to throw the book at him.

Stuff playing the Pacific Islands, Japan, Argentina and whatever is left of Australia every year.

If the Saffas leave I can't see it being good for NZ.

Weird people are finding a way to down play Robertson's decision to stay in NZ when at the same time we are lamenting the knowledge we are losing overseas. I am bloody stoked he's staying on longer, he seems to be a damn good coach and fucked if I want the likes of England getting their mits on him.

@voodoo said in Black Lives Matter:

@Crazy-Horse said in Black Lives Matter:

@Snowy said in Black Lives Matter:

@Siam said in Black Lives Matter:
How the other officers didn't respond is beyond me. One was Chinese heritage, one other mixed (Mexican?) race. I can't remember because it it isn't about race to me.

My memory tells me the other officers were very junior in service. Police forces around the world are very aware of the reluctance of junior officers to intervene when a senior officer is perceived to be overstepping the mark. There is now quite a bit of education around this, highlighting that if something goes wrong and you do nothing to intervene you are just as culpable. It still takes balls to step in though. Police can be very brutal towards their own.

Is there anything in police regs around an obligation to assist? I mean, we can argue the different autopsy reports to ascertain whether this was murder or manslaughter or neither, but is there some lesser charge around forcibly detaining while not helping someone clearly in distress? Appreciate it could be very different in the States (and State by State).

Its kind like dying from choking on a chicken wing you ate voluntarily while someone pins you down instead of whacking you on the back. Technically you died from self-inflicted wounds, but the fella sitting on you sure didn't help matters...

Yes police are obligated to assist. I would imagine the obligation is worldwide, at least in the western world. We are getting trained more in tactical first aid. For example, it used to be 'acceptable' assistance for police to just call for an ambulance after they shot someone. We were not trained to do anything further. Now police are obligated to render first aid by plugging holes and applying tourniquets etc following a shooting.

We are also trained to monitor people closely following restraint, especially following a struggle. One of the first things we are expected to do once someone is under control is to at least put them in the recovery position and monitor breathing. Lying on top of someone for a prolonged time following a struggle can cause them life threatening problems, especially if they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or have an underlying health issue.

It's pretty bloody difficult policing this shit because it is very much a 'damned if you do and damned of you don't' type scenario - a bit like enforcing school parking restrictions at drop off and pick up.

We are getting jobs where people are dobbing in people for sitting in parks, sitting out the front of their houses talking to neighbours, swimming at the local swimming hole, having too many cars parked outside their address, and we are copping people whinging that we aren't doing enough.

Then, when we attempt to enforce the restrictions we are abused for acting like a police state and Nazis.

Don't ring your cop shop for advice about what you can and can't do. We know just as much as the rest of you and you may end up with a cop who guesses the answer to your question and gives you the wrong advice. Also, I don't want to hear you babble on about why you think you should be allowed to tow your boat up to the Sunshine Coast and park it at your holiday home because my coffee is getting cold and I hate cold coffee. Look up the answer yourself.

@snowy said in Songs that remind you of...:

@r-l said in Songs that remind you of...:

I get this with smells as well by the way, like emotional flashbacks... has this thing got a name? I'm sure it has and i can't put my finger on it.

Known as the Proust effect with smells. Most people get it. Related to the location of the amygdala and the hippocampus. Can be nice, can be horrible.

For a while at work they were using the same air freshener in our cars that they were using at the morgue to unsuccessfully mask the smells there. Made for some interesting memories and in-car war stories.

@billy-tell said in SRA round 8: Chiefs v Crusaders:

Thought the stand out players were backs (ALB, DMac, Jordan) although Jacobsen had a great game.

Neither grace nor blackadder look like 8s which is a real problem for the crusaders.

DMac constantly keeps defence guessing and he passes flat was quite impressed tbh.

Agree re Jacobsen. He was a pain in the arse all game. Solid running game, some of his ruck work was outstanding and hit hard on defence. He seems very strong in contact.

It was a weird game in that the Crusaders seemed largely unconcerned about the Chief's attack until the near the end when they gave away a few penalties in a row. As someone mentioned during the game, the Crusaders didn't frequently infringe on their own line for much of the game. I reckon that was a sign they thought they had them under control.

Did anyone see the offside that the Chief's kicked the winning points from? Not saying it was the wrong call, I just didn't see what the ref was getting at. It was an unusual penalty for any team to give away so softly in that situation.

@stargazer said in SRA round 8: Chiefs v Crusaders:

I held my breath a bit during the first half, when Mo'unga seemed to get injured in a tackle by Vaa'i. He was not well at all, for a while. It wasn't clear on screen, but the radio commentators were talking about it quite a bit. He still played reasonably well after that though, but it seemed a bit with the break on.

Not sure if I am talking abut the same thing here, but there was a ruck 'clean out' on Richie that looked like it hurt him. Pretty sure I heard the crowd gasp at the time. I said to the Mrs I reckon Richie is going to be hurt here but the camera didn't show him for a while after that. It was a flying clean out, that on my one and only look seemed to take his legs out at a great rate of knots. I am amazed his knees survived.

@kiwimurph said in SRA round 8: Chiefs v Crusaders:

The ACT Crusaders with the lineout drive try.

I was calling it a bad decision because the drive has been shite tonight. What do I know.

@antipodean I typed that before the scrum

Momentum with the Chiefs

Hasn't Sanders improved? Wasn't overly impressed the Saders brought him back into the fold last year but I have changed my mind. Welcome back.

@bones said in SRA round 8: Chiefs v Crusaders:

Jacobson is putting his hand up at the right time.

He is starting to show the form that got him picked for the World Cup. Bloody good to see.

Chiefs looking good so far ball in hand

Interesting scrum