Home
On June 25th, a white jury in Tauranga found Police Sergeant Keith Parsons, Senior Constable Bruce Laing, Constable John Mills and Sergeant Erle Busby not guilt of brutally assaulting Rawiri Falwasser, a young Maori, in October 2006.
Rewi Falwasser suffered a mental breakdown on Labour Day 2006, and was not in control of his own actions. This is accepted by the police. He was arrested after stealing a neighbours car and driving erratically, endangering both himself and other people on the road.
The police took him to Whakatane police station, and put him in a holding cell. When they later came to remove him from the cell and take him to be photographed, he refused to leave the cell. According to Crown Prosecutor Fletcher Pilditch, Mr Falwasser was “stressed, confused and agitated”.
Following Falwasser’s refusal to leave the cell, Sergeant Parsons repeatedly sprayed him in the face with pepper-spray, and when he put up his hands to protect himself from this attack Parsons lashed out at his head with a baton, striking him on the hand and the wrist and leaving him with a 6½-centimetre cut to his arm.
Falwasser tried to flee from the attack, and as he did so Parsons hit him in the back of the head with his baton, leaving a five-centimetre gash.
Sergeant Parson eventually left the cell, which had by this time become filled with pepper spray, making it “intolerable for police officers”. Presumably working-class Maori are more able to tolerate having their cell filled with pepper spray than policemen are!
The cops continued to spray pepper spray through the vents into the room, despite Falwasser’s efforts to block them up with his clothes. He was bleeding profusely, and says that he “feared for his life”. He wrote the word “Jesus” on the wall in his own blood.
(Right: The four attackers)
The victim’s family reacted angrily to the court’s decision. His father Charles Falwasser labelled them “vermin” and “lower than the low”. The victim’s mother Kihi was “shocked and devastated” at the verdict, but said she was “not surprised”, as “We had a white jury in there… we live in a black-and-white world.”
This case proves the existence of racism and class prejudice in the New Zealand judicial system. It is highly unlikely that Rawiri Fulwasser would have been violently attacked in the brutal manner he was subjected to if he had been a white and middle class. The four police officers, all of them white, reacted more violently towards a man with brown skin, and felt more confident that they would get away with it. As this verdict shows, their confidence was well placed.
When violent crimes are committed by young, working class Maori in South Auckland, the response is a frenzy of calls for extended police powers and tougher penalties for violent criminals. Where are those calls now? Why is it that when white police officers brutally assault a young Maori man who doesn’t come from a wealthy background, there is no chorus of angry voices condemning their actions?
It seems that the cops were right to be confident – the New Zealand ruling class protects it’s own. “Safer communities together”? Yeah right.
Sources;
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10518286
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10515396&pnum=2
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4597470a11.html
RSS 
It’s all shame on name of law and order.
For him, I mean the Indian Cop, the world is a place dancing to his his own particular tune of power. He doesn't know what is brutal. he does not know because he does not need to know. To be an Indian Cop is to answer to no one.
If you want to read more about police brutality in India, I think you should also read report from the PUCL site at PUCL.org which has reports from Bihar, Jharkhand, among b other illustrious places.
Its like they became cops just so they can abuse people. I realize criminals do wrong but cops doing wrong to them is just as criminal
In New Zealand we are seeing this ”race card” used again and again on issue after issue. I have worked and lived with many fine Maori people - my daughter dated one for many years, our home was open at all times to him. Now, sadly, I find myself reacting to the perpetual bleating of many Maori. Even when they kill their young (increasingly) ”the whites” are blamed for what happened generations ago. Get a life!
It’s time everyone ”coloured AND white” shoulders responsibility. Clearly in this case the Police went far too far and that cannot be excused but equally the deteriorating New Zealand society, is sadly now fed on race issues, which makes a climate where commonsense on both sides of the argument ”goes out the window”.
New Zealand deserves better than seeing a divided society and suggesting that our Police force is riddled with thugs and racists is completely wrong.
It always amuses me how middle class white people complain about Maoris ”playing the race card”. The fact is that Maoris and Pacifc Islanders are impoverished and oppressed minorities that face discrimination in the workplace, the education system, the courts and just about everywhere else in NZ society. They have every right to speak up when the people that brutalised their son are let off scot-free because their son happens to have brown skin!
-”Black and white justice” was spat out by this guy’s parents. The venom rolled off their tongues. It was clearly deep and entrenched.-
No deeper or more entrenched than poverty, joblessness and social dysfunction in Maori and PI communities. They had every right to feel angry considering the miscarriage of justice they’d just witnessed!
-In New Zealand we are seeing this ”race card” used again and again on issue after issue. I have worked and lived with many fine Maori people - my daughter dated one for many years, our home was open at all times to him. Now, sadly, I find myself reacting to the perpetual bleating of many Maori. Even when they kill their young (increasingly) ”the whites” are blamed for what happened generations ago. Get a life!-
What other specific cases are you referring to? Because in this case it was clearly justified, and I don’t actually know of a great number of other cases where Maori people have ”played the race card”.
The woes of Maori communities are not due to ”laziness” or ”selfishness” or whatever. The problems in Maori communities come as a direct result of the generations of poverty, discrimination, alienation and despair that have been forced on them by the right-wing, capitalist governments that have run this country ever since the Treaty of Waitangi (which was not in any way a progressive treaty based on the peaceful reconciliation of Maori and Pakeha, and the extension of justice and equaloty to all. It was rather a document that legitimised the imperialist takeover of New Zealand by white settlers and justified the subsequent displacement of Maori from their land).
-It’s time everyone ”coloured AND white” shoulders responsibility. Clearly in this case the Police went far too far and that cannot be excused but equally the deteriorating New Zealand society, is sadly now fed on race issues, which makes a climate where commonsense on both sides of the argument ”goes out the window”.-
This specific case is partly a race issue and partly a class issue. It’s unlikely this would have happened to Falwasser if he came from a rich background, and it’s certainly not likely that his attackers would have been found not guilty.
Ultimately the argument needs to be framed in class terms, and you have to work out which class interests are at play, and whose side you’re on. I’m on the side of the working-class and against the capitalist class that exploits it. Where do you stand?
-New Zealand deserves better than seeing a divided society and suggesting that our Police force is riddled with thugs and racists is completely wrong.-
NZ IS a divided society. It’s divided into classes, oppressed and oppressors, exploited and exploiters, just like every other capitalist country in the world. To pretend otherwise is ridiculous.
I doubt the majority of cops are racist, but they are thugs. That’s the role of the police in a capitalist society - to act as the armed thugs of the state, and to protect the interests of the ruling class. Whenever there’s a strike, you don’t see the cops coming down to arrest the bosses for stealing the workers pay/conditions/jobs - instead you see them escorting scabs across the picket line, and arresting any workers they feel they can get away with. That’s the true role of the police in our society.
