Meurant on police shooting

On Monday, former MP and police officer Ross Meurant called for the officer who shot and killed Halatau Naitoko to face trial. Today, he's written a much longer opinion piece in the Herald which makes a strong case. The money quote:

The law is very clear when police may kill a human being. They must fear, on reasonable grounds, death or grievous bodily injury to themselves or a third person and that the death or grievous injury cannot otherwise be avoided than by killing the offender.

I do not pre-judge the lawfulness of the police action on that fateful day. It is for a court to decide whether the police shooting was lawful and justifiable.

The fact that the police actually missed the "offender" and hit an innocent person introduces the question of whether or not they were reckless or negligent in their use of firearms. There is no question of the police deliberately hitting the wrong person - that would be an absurd assumption. But negligent and/or reckless use of a firearm is axiomatic and these elements form the basis of manslaughter. [the standard charge is careless use of a firearm - I/S]

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Preservation of the rule of law is far more important than preservation of the police.

The place for the questions of culpability to be determined must be in a court of law.

This embraces the concept of separation of powers. It is fundamental to our democracy. Only then can the public have confidence in their police and only then can the police hold their heads high.

As should be clear from my posts on the matter, I think he's right; this is fundamentally a question of the rule of law and of public confidence that the police cannot kill with impunity. We won't get that confidence through the police exonerating themselves in a back room somewhere. We will get it through a public trial before a jury. And if the police fear that, then I think it says a great deal about how much confidence we can place in them.