Editorial: Don't tolerate police whitewashes

Opinion

If ever there was a question over whether we need the Independent Police Conduct Authority, it has been answered by events in the aftermath of the shooting of liquor store owner Navtej Singh.

He died in June 2008 after being shot in a robbery and left lying for 31 minutes before police allowed ambulance officers to treat him.

At the time, police defended their delay with arguments which even then were implausible: they needed to obtain firearms, they didn't know if the robbers had left the scene, it was unclear what had happened to Mr Singh, it was dark and things were happening fast, and, yes, they had procedures that had to be followed.

There was an immediate, defensive undertone which said, "We do a difficult, dangerous job and the media and public should give us a break."

Mr Singh's family and friends, who watched him bleeding, vomiting and collapsing in pain inside his shop and repeatedly pleaded for help, were not of a mind to let this pass.

To his credit, their MP, George Hawkins, a former Police Minister, backed them.

Yesterday, a conduct authority inquiry found the police delay could not be justified, was undesirable and the catalogue of mistakes that caused the delay "was arguably a breach of the police duty of care to preserve life".

The report examined all police arguments. It eliminated the one made most loudly at the time, that there was a need to get firearms from elsewhere before proceeding to the scene from a safe assembly point.

The officer in charge, it found, "had sufficient firearms in his vehicle to respond to this incident".

A policy of only supervisors carrying guns in cars did not contribute to the delays "and neither did issues with access to firearms from other vehicles".

The authority did find that failures of communication between the staff taking emergency calls from the store and officers on the ground meant no one person had a full appreciation of the facts.

Yet there were repeated witness statements that the robbers were long gone and Mr Singh was perilously ill.

A total of 75 movements by individuals in and around the shop, a crime scene, were recorded in the time police took to assemble themselves and their tactics.

Most distressingly, two of Mr Singh's friends separately offered in emergency calls to take him to hospital themselves but were told to stay where they were.

Predictably, the police hierarchy has declined to accept the authority's central findings. The report is no witchhunt.

It weighs all the circumstances and identifies a range of problems, with no individual blamed for the failure.

Indeed, the report names no one other than the deceased and his killer, another example of a creeping state censorship in these matters. Police officers who shoot someone are usually not named. Why do those who fail to perform get the same treatment?

Of three internal reviews, the authority notes one found an "unacceptable delay". It commends a superintendent's review of the communications centre's role.

But a further inquiry by another superintendent concluded police handled "a very difficult situation as well as they could have in the circumstances". The authority pointedly remarks that this man "risked missing the opportunity for police to learn".

Had the Singh family and the public had no independent avenue to review that ill-fated night, that would have been that.

Police headquarters and the Minister of Police, Judith Collins, need to ensure serious operational failings and the public excuses and private whitewashes that can follow are never tolerated.

Navtej Singh's death demands nothing less.