Back in the 1970's, the New Zealand Police framed Arthur Allan Thomas for a murder he did not commit. Thomas was eventually freed, but none of the officers who framed him faced any professional or criminal consequences, and just a few years ago the Police were still pretending that they had done nothing wrong. And its not an isolated story. Over the weekend, the Sunday Star Times had a story about former assistant commissioner Malcolm Burgess, who the Independent Police Conduct Authority has now (belatedly) concluded threatened to kill a woman in an effort to prevent her from going to the media about police wrongdoing. Burgess had been assigned to lead a police investigation into the cover-up of police involvement in the death of a young man. Instead, he threatened the victim's relatives to try and silence them. The IPCA initially rejected the complaint without investigating it and concluded that Burgess had "behaved appropriately". Last year, they finally bothered to speak to the witnesses, changed their minds, and even issued an apology for their failure to the complainant. By which time Burgess had retired on a full pension. As for the police, they're relying on that initial failure to investigate, and continuing to pretend nothing bad happened:
Joyce wants a public apology from police, but that call was rejected by current assistant commissioner Richard Chambers.
"Former assistant commissioner Burgess served New Zealand Police for 40 years and was a distinguished and professional officer who was dedicated to serving the community," Chambers said.
"For these allegations to continually be raised when they have already been formally considered and dismissed is disappointing. The allegations from Ms Joyce are strongly refuted by police and retired former assistant commissioner Malcolm Burgess.
"Therefore New Zealand Police will not be offering any apology."
And that's the problem right there: the police are simply institutionally incapable of admitting that one of their own has ever done anything wrong, even when a royal commission or their own conduct authority finds otherwise. In other words, they still institutionally shield and protect the reputations of the criminals among them. And until that changes, they simply cannot be trusted.
