The frightening new stats highlighting NZ Police Taser racism 

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A deeply concerning new report, Understanding Police Delivery, highlights a frightening new level of NZ Police taser racism.

It finds that NZ Police are repeatedly using Tasers against Māori men because they perceive Māori men as more of a physical threat rather than actually  being a threat.

• One in five taser “events” in the six-month period was at a family harm event.

• Males were nearly 10 times more likely to be tasered (over 85 percent of all tactical operations/use of force reports involved a male).

• 92 percent of TASER events involved men, and 90 percent of TASER discharge events.

• “The threshold for threat is considerably lower than that for females.”

• “In some cases, men were tasered for non-compliance or to gain control over a situation when no physical threat or weapon was present.”

Remember, Police are only allowed to use a Taser if there is an immediate threat of violence, what the stats are telling us is Police are reaching for their Taser for mere compliance and because they see Māori men as an immediate threat.

We have two rules here, one for Māori men and one for everyone else.

This level of bias should shock Kiwis, but in the current environment of anti-Māori and anti-Treaty bashing, I fear this report may sink beneath the surface again.