Listen Now: 
April 22, 2022
Kaoss Price shooting exposes police culture gap
Adam Gifford
Posted On April 22, 2022
Download AudioMāori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer says any investigation into the police killing of a Taranaki man this week needs to look at whether there are systemic issues about the way the region’s police treat tāne Māori.
She says the story about the shooting of Kaoss Price has been drip-fed by police and keeps changing.
Te Atiawa elders are helping to collect the evidence of people who were witnesses to the incident at Devon Rd, New Plymouth but had not been interviewed.
Ms Ngarewa-Packer says the community is reminded of what whānau went through 20 years ago when Steven Wallace was shot by police in Waitara – and they’re questioning what has changed.
“None of us knows the kōrero. None of us knows the real facts of what went down. What we do know, though, is there are systemic issues. We have poor confidence in the system. There should be change within the police that they have been trying to do but the culture of it, particularly when dealing with situations like now, are really poor,” she says.
She says Māori males aged 17 to 40 make up just 3 per cent of the population but make up 34 per cent of those who endure such force.
RELATED NEWS
