The Independent Police Conduct Authority will release its findings today into the fractious stand-off between police and protesters which culminated in a fiery riot on Parliament grounds on March 2 last year.
Opinion by Claire Trevett
Claire Trevett is the New Zealand Herald’s Political Editor, based at Parliament in Wellington.
The IPCA report into the police handling of the protests at Parliament is a summary of the bleeding obvious for those who had been there watching it all roll out – and leaves Police top brass with some questions to answer.
It chronicles the missed – or botched –opportunities to nip the protests in the bud and a long period of under-estimating the protesters.
It also makes it clear that stuff-ups both at the start and the end were not by the police on the ground - but those in charge of them.
It gives the police kudos for the overall efforts – but it does leave the top brass with questions to answer and red faces.
Most significantly it should answer to those police on the front line who did finally manage to clear the protest on that grim day of March 2 but were let down by their bosses.
The worst of that was the discovery that those in charge of the operation ruled out wearing hard shell body armour – and that many of those police out there on the day did not even have helmets.
The reason given was this: “This decision derived from a concern that hard body armour and long batons would provoke protesters and engender confrontation and violence.”
That decision was prompted by a puzzling naivety, given even shifting a bollard had resulted in confrontation and violence. It appears to have been based on the deluded hope that despite all evidence to the contrary over the past three weeks, the protest group could still be reasoned with and would not react badly to Police trying to clear them.
That decision was responsible for one of the more terrifying sights on the day – a photo of which was used in the IPCA report. It was the cluster of near defenceless police, cornered against the wall at the base of the Beehive, almost all without body armour or helmets and protesters hurling steel pipes and bricks at them.
An un-helmeted police officer is injured on day 23 of the protest at Parliament, Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell
And it was responsible for this quote from an officer to the IPCA: “so when the senior stood there [at the briefing for the operation] and he said: ‘Look unfortunately team we don’t have helmets, we don’t have [pepper] spray, we don’t have Tasers for you’, he said, ‘but’, I wrote this down, he said: ‘Safety, safety of our staff is a priority’, and there was laughter in this underground building as we all stood there and went how is safety our priority?”
Once it did become clear that an absence of body armour and batons had not been effective in preventing confrontation and violence, there was not enough to go around - nor were there enough helmets.
When the IPCA head Judge Colin Doherty was asked whether he considered there was a risk someone could have been killed on that day, he responded “there’s always a risk when someone is throwing a brick at your head”.
Then there was the big failure at the very start not to pay enough heed to the Police intelligence on the protest convoy before it arrived.
The IPCA found that the advance intelligence around the protest was robust and had warned of the spur that the Canada Convoy was having on domestic protesters, but that was almost ignored by the police charged with dealing with the protest here.
Instead, they opted to treat it in the same way as any other protest at Parliament – a minimal police presence and relying on the protest organisers to abide by the rules, expecting everybody to go home to a nice warm dinner after a day of shouting.
By the time they realised that this was not the same as any other protest, it was too late.
It was the start of three weeks of the Police hierarchy underestimating the protesters while the rest of those in and around Parliament could only wait and hope.
Then there are the smaller instances of top brass failings, such as the revelation that the ill-fated attempt to clear the protesters on the third day of the protest - February 10 - by arresting them, was Police Commissioner Andrew Coster’s recommendation. According to the report, that had come after Speaker Trevor Mallard told the Police he believed they should remove the protesters, and after a meeting Coster described as “uncomfortable” with Mallard, Grant Robertson and David Parker. The IPCA decided Coster had made his decision independently, rather than as a result of the political pressure.
But it was Wellington District Commander Corrie Parnell who copped the flak for that when it turned out to be the failure that apparently even the officers involved knew it would be from the start.
It was a ridiculous shambles of a day and was also responsible for one of the more ridiculous conclusions of the IPCA: that it amounted to a good PR exercise for Police who were at risk of becoming laughing stocks as the frustration of the local residents and businesses grew.
“The operation on 10 February demonstrated that Police were confronted with a difficult situation and that easy options to end the occupation at that time were not available. In short, likelihood of success aside, it did buy Police time to plan for the eventual (and successful) operation on 2 March.”
It was not the only instance in which Parnell was apparently hung out to dry by his seniors.
The IPCA report also notes the Wellington Police were simply not given enough support or backup in the early days of the protest. Even after Police headquarters took over five days later, the planning to clear the protest took longer than it should have.
Then there were the IPCA comments about the lack of communication and coordination among the top brass themselves – individuals taking it upon themselves to talk to different groups without passing it on to those running the show. The left hand often didn’t know what the right hand was doing.
There was a lack of planning at the very start - and even for the final onslaught.
The officers were also let down by the law – many charges had to be dropped because the arrest process had not sufficed, the report noted the law did not cater for mass trespass or arrest situations.
The different groups involved will take different bits from the IPCA report. Police Minister Ginny Andersen chose to focus on the good: the overall pass mark for the police handling.
The protest groups will no doubt think there was not enough focus on the bad: the instances where police did punch or hurt protesters in the heat of the action. The IPCA is still investigating those complaints: it has so far found police actions were unjustified in eight of the 19 complaints.
What this IPCA report is aimed at doing is ensuring next time round, police are ready – and so is Parliament. Doherty noted that it wasn’t every day that such mass violent protests happened: the last time was in the 1980s over the Springboks tour.
However, he added, we still needed to be better prepared for the next one.
The bigger hope for those who went through it is that there won’t be a next one.
