Police filmed punching teen
An Auckland man is demanding an explanation why a police officer punched his 13-year-old son, an incident caught on a video posted on social media.
Police said their actions were justified, but a human rights lawyer said the video raised serious questions about why such force needed to be used.
The father posted the video to Facebook saying ‘‘what is New Zealand coming to?
‘‘This is my 13-year-old son riding his bike in Highland Park, and look what the New Zealand police do to him.’’
The video shows the teen riding his bike onto grass and being chased by a police officer. Two officers then tackle him to the ground and subdue him.
One of the police officers struggles to get the boy’s arms behind him to be handcuffed and seems to punch the boy to force him to free his arm from beneath his body.
But police said the video was not all it seemed.
Counties Manukau East area commander Inspector Wendy Spiller said police had received a number of calls regarding the behaviour of a group of teenagers, with a member of the public
‘‘More often than not these videos will only show a portion of what has happened.’’ Inspector Wendy Spiller
saying they were aggressive and trying to fight people.
‘‘Police staff quickly attended and tried to speak with the teenagers.
‘‘However, the main aggressor, who was 13 years old, quickly tried to get away from police on a pushbike and was biking into traffic and ran through a red light,’’ Spiller said.
‘‘The officer managed to borrow another bike and followed him for several minutes and caught up to him.’’
Police said the tactic a policeman used which seemed to be a punch was something used to get an offender to release their arm so they could be handcuffed.
The youth faced charges including disorderly behaviour, failing to stop, dangerous driving and resisting police, Spiller said.
Spiller said: ‘‘Our staff come to work every day to keep the community safe.
‘‘On a daily basis our staff are subject to the most vile abuse in the course of their duties.
‘‘Very often our officers are filmed on cellphones and this is posted on social media.
‘‘More often than not these videos will only show a portion of what has happened and perhaps not surprisingly, rarely show the full circumstances, such as our staff being assaulted, abused or spat at.’’
Human rights lawyer Michael Bott said police could exercise the use of force but there were guidelines in place that police still needed to follow.
‘‘Was there violence or a reasonable apprehension of violence from the teen?’’
He said the video raised significant questions as to why such force was needed to be used by the policeman as the boy didn’t appear to be resisting arrest.
All the evidence surrounding the situation would need to be considered but he said the punching was ‘‘overkill’’.
Bott said the policeman may have been embarrassed that bystanders laughed at him when he tripped, but he was at a loss why the boy needed to be punched.