Police armed response teams could return after current commissioner's tenure ends, justice advocate fears

A justice advocate believes a change in leadership within police played a significant part in the scrapping of police's armed response teams (ARTs), but she has concerns changes made now will slip once Andrew Coster's tenure is up as commissioner.

The decision not to roll-out ARTs following the six-month trial, which finished in April, was based on preliminary findings from the trial evaluation, police said in a statement yesterday. It included feedback received from the public, as well as consultation with community forum groups.

The trial drew criticism for taking place in areas with large Māori populations including Counties Manukau, Waikato and Canterbury.

Last week, current Police Commissioner Andrew Coster, who was not in the role when the trial was rolled out, said, "this is a fundamental question of our style of policing in New Zealand. We have to find a balance between how we keep the public and our people safe alongside a style of policing.

"I am fundamentally committed to New Zealand police remaining a generally unarmed police service."

Yesterday, in announcing the trial will not continue, he said "armed response teams will not be a part of the New Zealand policing model in the future".

However, on TVNZ1's Breakfast this morning, lawyer and justice advocate Julia Whaipooti said while the scrapping of the trial was "a huge relief", she still had fears.

"There is a sort of grain of salt with that for me," she said,

"Before ARTs were put on the road, police were already six times more likely to pull a gun on Māori, nine times more likely to pull a Taser on Māori, 10 times more likely to release dogs on Māori and 11 times more likely to use pepper spray, so these are the forces that are already available." Those statistics are the New Zealand's Police's statistics.

"I knew, and many of us knew, that expanding the arming of police in any way was going to cost our lives, Māori lives, and so it's a relief to know that that's not going to happen because I truly believe that that will save lives not arming the police here," Ms Whaipooti said.

However, she added there will be several police commissioners in her lifetime and she feared the changes will be reversed.

"This commissioner laid bare his philosophy to policing which is unarmed and I think that that has been hugely significant in changing the direction of this, however there's a concern here of course it shouldn't be dependent on who the commissioner of the day should be.

"Andy's only going to be around for five, or maybe 10 years which is great but I'm concerned about what happens when we get a new commissioner and what their philosophy might be?"

Mr Coster has previously acknowledged "outcomes for Maori in the criminal justice system are appalling and we need to look very carefully to make sure we're not part of the problem there".

But while Mr Whaipooti said she was "heartened" by the statement, she said "I'm also reminded of former police commissioner Mike Bush saying in 2015 the unconscious bias in policing that exists in New Zealand and how police police Māori and when I look at the statistics and the numbers nothing has changed, those statistics I said about the use of force on Māori hasn't changed."

Ms Whaipooti said there needs to be a push to reallocate funding for policing to preventative measures, like mental health.

"The ARTs in of itself doesn't address the systemic racism that we see in our policing, we see in our justice, we see in our state care system and in engaging with our communities and that's something I remain fearful of, hopeful under this commissioner, but there's a lot of work to do and I have a lot of breaths left and I continue to make the pushes to ensure our communities are safe."