Posts Tagged ‘crime’

Napier Shooting

I am quite busy this month so I expect more time between updates in this blog. However, I still had enough time to watch the incident in Napier unfold.

Unlike a lot of backseat drivers who have never been to the site, I have no problem with how the police handled the inccident.  It is more than obvious that police wanted the gunman Jan Molenaar alive, otherwise AOS would storm the house before we know it. Unlike the Aramoana massacre, Molenaar snapped, but he poses no immediate threat to the public, therefore it's best to talk it out rather than end it with another life lost and put the Police in further danger.

The real problem of this tragedy, I think is the internal police procedures. I still prefer the polic to not carry any guns in daily patrols, but this incident was to carry out a search warrent, but the police failed to foresee the danger of such activity so failed to carry guns. It's the police authority failed to protect the safety of police force.

This was also the case in the death of Don Wilkinson. His fate was sealed when they decided not to carry guns.

Teacher stabbed at Avondale College

The news broke out at the midday yesterday, Avondale College's Japanese language teacher, Dave Warren, was stabbed by a student while teaching in the class. And the local media, especially the herald, did their best on finding out the nationality of the offender as in other cases before, declaring "it wasn't one of us" -the attacker was a Korean national, who had been there for just few weeks.

However, it is still related to "one of us". The catalyst of the attack seems to be some kind of racist remark from the teacher, according to the report.

As you may know, I attended Avondale College for few weeks before I decided to leave, and went back to my former high school, a decile 3(Even worse this year I heard) school. Am I stupid? Maybe, but Avondale got some kind of strange culture, it's hard to tell what it is and not necessarily "racism", but it makes you feel that you don't belong to there, nobody wants to hear what you think and want. I was attending so called "mainstream" classes (another way of saying "normal classes", compare with "esol class") in my old school, but because I have a Chinese face, they wanted me to waste another year in ESOL with no interest to hear my story.

I don't know the attacked teacher, but I do know people who know him or attended his class before. Their comments seem to match what is being reported, although Mr Warren may never had the intention to offend, some of his daily language are very likely to be offensive to some people.

I'm not endorsing violence against racist remarks, the point I want to make is, if there isn't another way to express your concern or release your anger, violence is the only way left. In this case, language barrier might be a factor but I also suspect the reason I described above had something to do with it.

This applies to both new immigrants and those who were born here. Every thing happens for a reason, you don't do anti-social stuffs for no reason or just for fun.

The Northwestern Motorway shooting

I'm not an expert on police procedures so just a little bit of my opinion.

Herald got a nice illustration on how the whole thing happened.

First, under certain circumstances police in this country has the right to shoot to incapacitate or  kill. In this case, the offender is armed and fired shots, dangerously speeding, threatening the safety of the general public, I would guess this is one of  the circumstances that justifies the use of firearms.

So the death of an innocent civilian, 17 year old Halatau Naitoko  is a case of whether the police should took more care, not the case of whether the police should fire shots in the first place.

As the Herald report shows, Naitoko's van is stopped just behind the gunman, and within the line of fire.  The situation looked like this:

Police/AOS |------|Gunman|------|Naitoko in his van

I think the key is, whether the AOS knew the car behind the gunman got  people in it or they were just too concentrated on the gunman. The police probably should took more care but I cannot see any wrongdoing in this case - police or even AOS are not Naval Seals so you should expect some of their shoots to miss, and unfortunately, Naitoko was caught in the line of fire. Gun battles may look exciting in the American TV series and Hollywood movies, but in real life, police need, and pressured to make  split-second and sometimes random decisions, and that could lead to tragic consequences.

I don't think  there's the need to charge  whoever fired that shoot as AOS were simply doing their job. This is rather an unfortunate case for both police and the Naitoko family - if the police and gunman swap places, then Naitoko could be killed by gunman rather than the police - will that make the this case easier to swallow? Probably not, as some would still blame the police for not doing enough to protect the public.

This is one of the things that happened in the wrong place, probably in the wrong time as well.

If we blame police for doing their job then next time if something similar pops up, officers will be more hesitate to fire, worrying that if he/she got wrong then he/she may end up in jail, and put themselves and general public in a greater danger.

The Naitoko family are more than entitled to receive compensations from the crown as the police is responsible for his death, police should also apologise to the family, but hold someone accountable for doing their job is bit of a step too far. You may argue that AOS and police officers should receive more training, but that's the problem of the Police as a whole, not the responsibility of individual police officers.

Xue's currently seeking bail

Most people who know me well in person know that there's a group of professions which I have no fond feelings - lawyers, real estate agents ...

Xue Nai Yin's Lawyer, is seeking a bail for his client. It's not because Xue paid him enough money so the lawyer worked hard to try to get him out, it's exactly the opposite   - Xue's run out of money, his lawyer needs to get him out so he can work and pay for the fees.

See.

Finally...

As the name suppression is no longer in place, I can now name the kidnapper in the Cina Ma case.

The kidnapper's name is Aaron Deng, a 25 year old real estate agent from Ray White's Pinehill branch.

What I heard is that his family is also quite wealthy and fiancially supported his study here. I understand that he's working in Ray White not because of money to support his life, but to enable him to stay here.

So I don't think he kidnapped Cina Ma for ransom. In fact, what I heard is he didn't plan to hold Cina for that long, Mr Deng just want to "give the family a warning" by hold Cina for few hours, and then release her (that's why Cina was found only a street away).

You know the rest, the police was there most of the day, and his "plan" seems to be backfired.

It is still not yet clear on what kind of dispute between those "adults" triggered the kidnap.

More on the Xin Xin Ma kidnap case.

The accused kidnapper reappeared in North Shore City District  Court today.  Nothing important, really.

However, I was expecting the name of the kidnapper being released today, but instead, the name suppression of the accused was extended to 4th August. It's a subject of huge public interest, well, at least most Chinese people I know are eager to find out the name of that guy.

Compare with other countries like America or Canada, Chinese in New Zealand is a small community, so if that real estate agent did his job well, it is likely that quite a lot of us may meet him before or knew him pretty well.

I hope the court got a good reason for the name suppression. At least now it seems that the rumours will keep flying around for another week or two. before we know the kidnapper's name.

----------------

IUPDATE: I just obtained the personal details of the accused, including the name. However, as the suppression is still in place, I'm unable to publish all details here.

All I can say is, this case is not as simple as it may looks like.