Watch as a Police Officer assaults a man in his car for the ‘crime’ of shopping with his partner:

The man in the video has contacted The BFD to give more context to the story. He has stated that the Police officer didn’t quite knock his phone to the ground. He has outlined the sequence of events.

  • His girlfriend and he went into PAK’nSAVE at different times.
  • They had one quick conversation when they saw each other inside.
  • He was then followed around by security while he did his shopping. 
  • When he finished his shopping, he told his girlfriend and they made their way outside. 
  • The Police were waiting. 
  • They followed them to the car and started taking photos of them and the vehicle. 
  • That’s when he started filming.
  • The police officer tried to tell them they were breaching the law when they were not.
  • The Police officer then quickly reached OVER his girlfriend and aggressively snatched the phone out of his hand.
  • The Police officer then continued to swear and intimidate them. 
  • Then the Police officer threw his phone back at him very hard hitting his chest and telling them to “eff off”.
  • They are both very shocked at the incident and disgusted with the behaviour of the Police.
  • They are in the process of laying a complaint.

This is just insane. This Police officer stopped these people because they went into a supermarket separately but then got into the same car afterwards. What the hell are they supposed to do? Drive home in different cars?

Sorry Officer but just because you’ve been mandated extra-ordinary new powers, it doesn’t mean you need to embrace them so enthusiastically!

If you’re going to swear at someone, don’t do it while they are pointing a camera at you, and don’t steal it out of their hand then throw it at them, committing what might be classed as an assault.

This is a salutary lesson on how to interact with over-bearing Police officers. This shows clearly that the cops have no evidence if you don’t give them any. By not replying to the cop’s questions, the guy hasn’t incriminated himself. Again, he was probably being a smart arse beforehand; the girl says “why are you doing this?” to him so she just wants to get out of there. 

Government Covid-19 website

The rules say “If possible, try to send 1 person per household to do the shopping, and make sure you practise 2-metre physical distancing and good hygiene while out. Wear a face covering when out shopping.”

There is no regulation that mandates a single person only. So the Police officer was trying to enforce a rule that he was actually unable to enforce. He was acting outside of the law and arguably has assaulted this man.

The BFD attempted to contact the officer involved but at the time of the publication of our first article had received no reply.

Information

A Police Spokesperson has responded to our inquiries:

We set high standards for our staff, and we are proud of how our staff are out in the community every day policing to keep people safe in an Alert Level 4 environment.

By far the vast majority of people have adhered to the restrictions in place and we are grateful to the community for that.

We acknowledge that the response in this instance was not what we expect of our staff and we will be speaking to the officer involved.

Police will not be commenting further on internal matters as we have privacy obligations to consider.

ENDS

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As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news,...