Police powers !

Somebody with a mobile phone took pictures that sparked the arrest of eight South African police.  Those pictures showed an arrested man handcuffed to the back of a police vehicle - and then dragged through the streets as it was driven to the police station.   The prisoner was later found dead in a cell, suffering massive injuries.  These police will  probably face murder charges.

This atrocity would probably not have seen the light of day if those pictures had not been passed to the media.   It is a timely warning that ever increasing police powers can lead to out of control behaviour by the people who are supposed to guard us from harm.  There is also a tendency for the police to close ranks and block any attempt to bring their offenders to justice.

South Africa has had a troubled history with apartheid and even under black rule it has one of the highest murder rates in the world.  The difficulties of exerting control are used to justify harsh police actions, as was the case when police gunned down thirty-five striking miners.   So far, nobody has faced court over this misuse of armed force.

This is a timely warning for the procedures for investigating complaints against the police to be tightened in New South Wales, and in particular - to be removed from the present practice of police investigating police.
We have just had an event of police misuse of power revealed in court.   An indigenous man was bashed by police who claimed that he punched an officer and his violence had to be subdued.   It seems the officers colluded to swear false evidence and this only collapsed when cctv footage - thought to be damaged beyond repair - became available and showed the true situation in that charge room.

A worrying aspect of complaints against police is the tendency for the police to close ranks and apply pressure to drop investigations.   Both the government and the judiciary are well aware of the power the police hold.   The ultimate weapon would be a police strike, but lesser forms of action can severely affect state finances.  In the past, police have gone on partial strike - refusing to book motorists and simply issuing warnings for traffic offences.   Revenue streams running into millions of dollars are immediately affected.

So far, police have succeeded in derailing attempts to introduce an impartial investigator to oversee complaints against police.  The present system involves officers from another district of policing to make what is supposed to be an impartial investigation, but of course - this is still a matter of police investigating police - and there the impartiality ends !

This South African incident is extreme, but here in Australia there have been deaths in police custody and suspicious use of firearms that have not been satisfactoraly explained.  As a revelation of graft and bribery of police controlling Sydney's vice district showed some years ago, if control of police is lax, corruption will quickly fester - and some police will consider themselves above the law.

Unfortunately, what we see in the media is usually only the tip of the iceberg !