Police who broke the law when they detained hundreds of Christchurch car enthusiasts were acting in "good will", according to the Police Association.
Hundreds of boy and girl racers gathered in February 2012 to raise money for the Christchurch rebuild, but police shut it down after reports of burnouts and other disorderly behaviour. They detained attendees for up to seven hours without food, water or toilet access.
The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) received 31 complaints, which were upheld in a report released yesterday, that said the police had acted unlawfully and were in breach of human rights.
Police Association president Greg O'Connor said on Firstline this morning officers at the scene never intended to break the law, but they accept the report's findings.
"The officers thought that they were acting within the law, they weren't, and clearly the rights of the people that they were policing were breached. These were very good police officers who were doing the job," says Mr O'Connor.
He says the sheer number of car enthusiasts at the charity 'cruise' made it a difficult situation to control.
"The way the boy racers are able to operate – why they can get away with this – is that they hide in big numbers, so that any police operation designed to curtail their activities, and there's clear evidence in this case that their activities involved burnouts, disorder, means that the police have to take a large-scale response. In this case they took the large-scale response and in doing so, they did overreach the law and the rights of some people."
He says police have implemented new guidelines for dealing with situations like this in the future, and that officers present at the 2012 rally now wish they had dealt with the situation differently.
"We don't want an out-of-control police state – we see what happens overseas. Police have to operate under rules."
Despite the breaches, Mr O'Connor believes most Christchurch residents back police efforts to crack down on boy racer activities in the city.
3 News
source: newshub archive
