"When it comes to the police, all people see is people in blue uniforms that are either hounding someone or pulling people over. But there's also the stuff people don't think about." Photo / Getty Images
An occasional series profiling every day New Zealanders who have lived lives less ordinary but largely unknown.
Allison* was a New Zealand Police officer during the late 80s and into the 90s. From South Auckland youth aid to delivering "death knocks" to losing a colleague to suicide, she shares heartwarming and harrowing memories from her time on the beat.
It was on her first shift at a station in Auckland that Allison realised she'd entered "an old boys' club".
"The culture was sh** house back then, hoo! If I'd made my gender an issue, it would have been an issue.
"They made jokes about me making cups of tea. I just said, 'oh yeah, we had a special course in that at Police College.' You kind of had to give it back, hold your own. If you let that kind of thing affect you, you'd be in a lot of trouble.
"You did, in some ways, have to prove yourself more than what a male who graduated at the same time did. It was harder being female," she recalls.
One weekend when she went in to begin her shift, she was confronted with news of a colleague's suicide. It's something Allison believes to this day was incited by the culture of that era.
"It was bad. Really bad. She'd put in for annual leave and they'd approve it then tell her she couldn't take it. I'd told her to go and ask for her personal records. You're allowed them but they wouldn't give them to her. They did things like that.
"It was bad enough that her parents said no one was to wear a uniform to the funeral and no one above the rank of sergeant was to attend. I was interviewed about it but I don't know where it went after that. They knew what they'd done. They let this happen."
A police spokesperson told the Herald the "tragic incident ... was thoroughly investigated by Police with the oversight of the Independent Police Conduct Authority (known at the time as the Police Conduct Authority)."
While it was an incident that could have seen Allison leave the organisation then and there, she stuck it out for almost a decade, experiencing camaraderie, tragedies and triumphs to an extent many of us will never encounter.
"When it comes to the police, all people see is people in blue uniforms that are either hounding someone or pulling people over," Allison says.
"But there's also the stuff people don't think about."
"The informing jobs are some of the hardest. There were a few that were just harrowing. Just awful."
One in particular, when Allison talks about it, puts her right back in the home of a grieving family on the night that changed their lives forever.
"A car had plummeted down a bank," she recalls. "A 16-year-old boy was thrown out and was killed. We had to do that mortuary procedure. My partner said, 'I can't do it.' So I did it.
"And someone had to go and tell his parents. It was the sh***iest thing I've ever had to do: tell someone their son is never coming home again.
"This family had one son that was always in trouble, so his parents weren't surprised to see the police turn up at 3am. But they had another son who was still in school, a good boy, he was doing really well. He's the one who died.
"I'll never forget that young fella. I just felt terrible after that. But someone had to do it. Someone had to tell them. And that's the side that people don't think about. The really human side. We weren't just out there locking people up."
She says there are other incidents that have remained very vivid some 26 years on: a cot death attended by a sergeant who had just lost his own baby the same way. And the drowning of a little boy being looked after by his grandmother.
"He'd gone outside, for a split second - that's all it takes - and he'd fallen in a pond and drowned. Imagine how she was feeling, then we had to tell the parents.
"Later you'd talk about it. You'd slowly come to grips with it. It was part of that role. If it didn't affect you, there was something very, very wrong. Because it should. But there's no way you can show that to the people at the time."
Allison says while "it's life and it's reality", it's the sort of thing that's kept out of the general public's view. But in doing so, it makes it isolating for those who do see it.
"If no one else has been through it, no one else really understands what it's like."
Part of coping with such tragic encounters came down to the strong bonds that developed among the colleagues who shared them, says Allison.
"There's a real camaraderie, especially in the section you work in. Everybody knows each other really, really well.
"When you've got colleagues like that, you'd walk over hot coals for them. That's the bond that's built over time. They're kind of like brothers to you. It kind of has to be that way, because that job's difficult enough as it is. If you didn't have that camaraderie, you'd be screwed. Because you see things that other people, hopefully, will never ever have to see."
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Allison says she learned early on that there was never any point trying to reason with someone under the influence.
"The favourite with a drunk driver was, 'Why aren't you out there getting real criminals?' I'd say, 'I thought I was. I thought you were a potential killer, actually.'"
Often, if they ended up being taken into police custody, they'd perform "like trained seals", she recalls.
"I'd just say, 'I've got eight hours. The guy after me has eight hours. If you're nice and quiet, I'll take you down to the cell and you can sleep it off. Then you can go home.' But if they'd really p***ed me off, I'd wake them up at about 3am to fingerprint them. 'Oh, sorry. Were you having a nice sleep, were you?'", she says, adding that "a good sense of humour is a must. Otherwise, you wouldn't cope."
When they did wake up the next day in a more sober state, she says they were often "very sorry" for their behaviour.
"The amount of times they would apologise as you were kicking them out of the cells in the morning - and they'd say, 'I only do that when I'm drunk.' Well, there's your answer."
Not all encounters could be managed with a good sense of humour, however.
"Sometimes you'd go into situations where people were really upset and angry and yelling and swearing. I'd say, 'I'm not swearing at you, why are you swearing at me?' And they'd go, 'Oh, oh sorry, Miss, I didn't realise I was.' If someone called you Miss or a male officer, Boss, you knew they'd been in trouble before. Definitely.
"One time in particular I felt really scared," she says of an incident that occurred while moving a man between cells.
"He grabbed me by the shirt so hard that the seam on my shoulder cut into my skin and cut my arm. If it wasn't for my sergeant being there and choking him out, I don't know what would have happened. It was not good. I thought, oh no. I'm in deep shtook."
In her role as a youth aid officer in Mangere, South Auckland, Allison encountered perhaps the most difficult yet most rewarding work in her time as a police officer.
One day she received a call about a 10-year-old boy who'd pulled a knife on another child.
"I was used to dealing with kids who were big for their age. I went and spoke to his mother at home. And out came this tiny little white boy.
"I said, 'Are you Stephen?' 'Yes.' 'Did you try to rob someone?' 'Yes.'
"It was a butter knife and it was his mate's sister. The reason his mother, who was actually his aunty, had reported it was because she'd been to CYFs (Child Youth and Family) as it was then, trying to get help. He was coming home late and she was really worried about him. They'd told her to buy him a watch. So we started some programmes with him to try and help."
There were some children that Allison never saw again. "But some of them you saw time and time again. A lot of it, they were just caught up with the wrong sort of people. A lot of them had really loving families, and that's what would save them."
She recalls working with a young man who was from a family of "bad bastards who spent most of their time in prison – like, I'm talking for murder, bad bad bad."
Allison was brought in when one of their children started offending. She admits she didn't hold out much hope for him. But years later, a chance encounter at a Royal Oak Pizza Hut told a different story.
"Here's this kid who'd been an offender and he was the manager of this restaurant. He came up to me later and said, 'you won't say anything, will you?' I said, 'Oh hell no. Good on you. You've done really well.'
"He's one of the ones who managed to walk away from it. It's very hard, once you become entrenched in that kind of lifestyle and environment. It was awesome to see. And that's why you do it. Because every so often, you get one that you are going to help change. And who is going to turn their life around. So it makes it worth it."
Reflecting on her time with the New Zealand Police, Allison says all in all, it was "a great job".
"I loved that it was always different. Every day was different and you never knew what was going to happen. To anyone considering joining the police, go for it. It can be very rewarding. It tests your character. The main things you need to be a good police officer are tolerance and common sense.
"It isn't just black and white. There were police who, if someone had a joint, they'd lock them up. I didn't always do that. For example, there were a couple of kids at a railway station who we saw drop a joint. We went over and had a chat and said, 'Oh, is that yours?' They told us, 'Oh, nah nah nah. We don't know who's that is.' So, we said, 'Oh you don't mind if we do this, then?' And we ripped it up and threw it all into the wind. You could see their faces, they were gutted. But there was nothing they could say, because it wasn't theirs, was it?"
After almost a decade, Allison made the decision to leave.
"I'd gotten together with a guy who'd done three years for possession of cocaine but was compliant. I told my senior sergeant and a mate who was a detective - he was a good bastard. Then the inspector got wind of it and started to question me. I felt like, don't be telling me who I can see and what I can do. It had also got to a point where I was there for the money and the holidays. And that's not the right reasons. As soon as you start thinking that way it's time to move. Time to go."
A police spokesperson told the Herald, "Police is a values based organisation and we have extremely high expectations when it comes to the behaviour and conduct of our staff.
"Policing in Aotearoa has changed significantly over the past two decades. A priority for Police is a focus on the wellness of our people and we work to support them as much as we can in what can be an extremely difficult job where our officers face confronting and challenging situations every day."
*Allison requested her name be changed for this article.
Where to get help:
• Lifeline: 0800 543 354 (available 24/7)
• Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO) (available 24/7)
• Youthline: 0800 376 633 or text 234 (available 24/7)
• Kidsline: 0800 543 754 (available 24/7)
• Whatsup: 0800 942 8787 (12pm to 11pm)
• Depression helpline: 0800 111 757 or text 4202 (available 24/7)
• Anxiety helpline: 0800 269 4389 (0800 ANXIETY) (available 24/7)
• Rainbow Youth: (09) 376 4155
If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
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