Ex cop's social media pages an ongoing embarrassment for police

Former policeman Chris Yates has built popular social media accounts mocking politicians, police administration, gay people and youth offenders - and his growing following includes members of the NZ Police. Sam Olley investigates this enduring PR headache for the police and talks to the man behind the memes.

It’s “gay” to be a firefighter, says one meme.

Another celebrates the idea of criminals dying in prison.

Facebook posts call the Ministry of Justice staff "soft c**ks" and claim defence lawyers smell like "b*tch".

Comments call former Police Minister Poto Williams an "overpaid under-qualified parasite" and former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern "the tart at the top".

And politicians aren’t the only named targets. Another status tells a journalist reporting on police shootings to "eat a bag of d**ks".

This is what you'll find on Blue Line Banter, social media pages designed to engage and amuse followers, who include members of the New Zealand Police. The accounts are far from official, and they are also laced with posts telling people to "go f*** themselves" if they report the posts to Police National Headquarters (PNHQ), which clearly some have done.

Featuring posts that are offensive, abusive, resentful, and coming from a very clear political standpoint, the Blue Line Banter accounts on Instagram and Facebook have been causing police management concern for more than two years.

The pages are run by Chris Yates, a former New Zealand police officer, who says he is now a “motivational speaker” after burnout forced him to leave the New Zealand Police in 2018.

1News can confirm police have investigated how their own staff – including frontline constables – have consistently engaged with Yates’ pages, expressing in inter-staff emails obtained via OIA requests that they are concerned the engagement will "undermine the trust and confidence of the public".

Police National Headquarters has also been concerned about security – after some staff this year shared copies of their police ID cards with Yates. This was a prerequisite to join a Blue Line Banter offshoot Facebook group called “Operation Covert”.

Blue Line Banter has also been central to an Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) investigation after a police staff member inappropriately published someone's contact details on the Blue Line Banter page and criticised them in some (now deleted) comments.

Police, according to the IPCA, failed to escalate the matter. Now the head of the IPCA, Judge Kenneth Johnston KC, has reviewed other posts forwarded by 1News, and called them "infantile".

But Blue Line Banter's popularity continues to grow – the Facebook page alone now has 8400 followers.

Police began investigating Blue Line Banter in October 2021.

At that stage, six months after starting, the Facebook page had 1900 followers and the investigation noted that this account and its Instagram equivalent had a majority following of police employees.

"From the Instagram account alone it is possible to ascertain the following comprises of police employees from Tāmaki Makaurau, through to Canterbury. Employee positions range from frontline constables, to non-sworn employees from scene-of-crime and intelligence units," the investigation found. It continued: "All memes created and posted as part of these profiles hold potential to undermine the trust and confidence of the public in relation to Police".

Not to mention "distrust" within the police: "The sentiment of the memes is clearly disgruntled with the current Commissioner [of Police, Andrew Coster]."

No doubt for senior staff reviewing the pages, they were unsettling. Shortly after the investigation began, a Superintendent Director of Integrity and Conduct, Jason Guthrie, told colleagues he had looked at Blue Line Banter to his “peril".

"It didn't take me long to come across a couple of very unprofessional/questionable comments that are clearly from current, serving police employees," he wrote in an email. He said, "I stopped looking because I was getting angry... the difficulty with this is not where do we start, it’s where do we stop."

Scrolling through the Blue Line Banter pages it’s easy to see why police management might despair. For an organisation that outlines its values (in five languages) on its site as Professionalism, Respect, Integrity, Commitment to Māori and the Treaty, Empathy and Valuing Diversity, the public engagement of its members with such posts is something of a public relations nightmare.

Some posts champion police violence – tasering people until they lose control of their bowels, for example, or-punching youth through the windows of stolen cars.

Others chastise the police watchdog, saying if you work at the IPCA you are "the second biggest pu**y in the world" and in a group of “stupid f***s”. If you help the IPCA you’re a "snitch" and a "snake”. And if you date a “snitch” – you are a "c**t".

"C**t" is also the word the page uses to describe those who express offence to the posts, as well as “f***tard” and "bi****rse" – the page’s misogynistic language again clashing with NZ Police’s efforts to dispel any remnants of a macho image. The homepage of its own site features just two officers – both women.

Facebook also appears to have attempted to reign in the language on Blue Line Banter, but its administrator was unapologetic, saying "Zuckerberg jail" had "failed" to teach him a lesson.

And again, the contrast between the Blue Banter tone and that of NZ Police’s official social media accounts could hardly be more stark. Behold, videos of police on Pink Shirt Day wearing pink hi-vis, with vans decorated in "stop bullying" signage. There are posts from Pride celebrations where police march with rainbow flags, hand out rainbow wristbands, hold placards about "respect" and "integrity" and use coloured lights to project a rainbow onto a police station. And on White Ribbon days there are earnest appeals to reduce violence in the community.

This uncomfortable polarity obviously jars with many. Blue Line Banter's posts have prompted regular complaints to Police National Headquarters – sometimes multiple times a week.

When a firefighter meme (pictured below) was posted on the page in July last year, one intelligence supervisor in Christchurch emailed colleagues concerned about the PR implications, stating the post had an "overtly homophobic nature".

"People, including those identifying themselves as serving staff, are commenting and reacting to it. This is likely to impact trust and confidence, particularly with the rainbow community," they wrote.

They added that they had repeatedly seen posts on the page that had sparked "disparaging comments" about both the Police Minister and the Commissioner, written by people who were "obviously current NZ Police staff".

The intelligence supervisor also shared a subsequent post from the page that said opinions of anyone offended by the post identified as homophobic were of "little interest to no interest" to the page. This was followed by another post stating those concerned by the meme should "go f*** yourself".

Around the same time of this particular post, a police social media manager alerted colleagues, saying: "There are a lot of current serving staff who are commenting and engaging with the page – who can then be identified as police staff... Calling on you for help."

A police integrity manager replied, also concerned "currently-employed NZP staff" were still "making comment/supporting memes/comments of the Blue Line Banter administrator, comments and views which would be contrary to our values and codes".

Memes posted on the page also mocked people who reported the posts and comments to Police National Headquarters.

Then came the security concerns. This year, a shift commander discovered there was a new private Facebook Blue Line Banter group called "Operation Covert” with more than 300 members.

To join, staff had to provide copies of their IDs by direct message.

Police worried that sharing the IDs was "a huge security risk" which "external parties may attempt to exploit".

By February this year police had "no doubt" staff had provided copies of their IDs to join the group.

At the same time the National Command and Coordination Centre was raising concerns in emails about "the potential for data mining of staff identities and social media profiles".

And NZ Police's principal advisor for protective security was concerned membership of this group would get "marketing… up to monetising levels". He also said posts in the group from police staff could "constitute a breach under the social media use policy as well as the Official Information Act".

He was concerned staff were "adding their expert opinion [online] on stuff that hasn't been publicly disclosed".

The exchange ended on a note of irony. "Yay for social media," he wrote.

But at the same time, another staff member messaged a manager at the National Intelligence Centre, concluding: "I don't think there's much we can do with the Blue Line Banter issue... I don't know how we stop people foolishly sharing photos of their ID, but someone might have a bright idea!"

This weariness mirrored earlier comments made in an email from the police integrity and conduct group prevention manager last year, which stated NZ Police did not have the resources to find out exactly how many of their members were engaging with the pages and what they were saying, and that sending out new reminders to staff about police policies, values and codes could be unsuccessful.

"I feel this may fall on deaf ears," he said.

The acting strategic advisor of diversity and inclusion appeared to agree, saying: "Absolutely appreciate that our hands are largely tied here, and also how frustrating that is for many."

The police social media team have been continually alerted to Blue Line Banter to the point where one social media manager, upon being sent a copy of yet another meme from a colleague, replied "Thank you! FFS."

To complicate matters for police, Blue Line Banter has been central to a separate IPCA investigation that cracked down on police checks and balances.

The investigation was opened when a senior constable in the Tasman District named and listed on the Blue Line Banter page the contact details of a person who had reported a post from the page to a district commander.

This led to the whistleblower receiving random emails from people, saying things like "why would you be such an a**hole... Is it because you... have a small penis?"

When Tasman police looked into it, they said the senior constable’s actions were "inappropriate" and had breached privacy. Tasman police apologised to the whistleblower and reprimanded the senior constable with an "employment process". However, they didn’t conduct a full investigation.

The IPCA followed up with its own investigation instead – and last year released a ruling: "The Authority disagrees with the Police decision not to conduct a proper investigation into what happened... Police failed to appropriately consult with the Authority before deciding not to investigate this matter."

In a written statement, police said they accepted the IPCA's decision regarding the Tasman District officer's behaviour. "The behaviour of the officer falls far below the professional standard we expect from our staff, and he has undergone an employment process."

They acknowledged there was a "regrettable" delay in notifying the IPCA and said they had made changes to their internal disciplinary model.

InsideOUT – a charity focused on making Aotearoa safer for rainbow youth – also reviewed some Blue Line Banter posts and OIA documents showing internal NZ Police concerns.

Managing director Tabby Besley says Blue Line Banter's rhetoric towards rainbow communities is "really harmful", adding to an already difficult situation where "historically, rainbow communities don't have a very good relationship with the police".

"When we have, unfortunately, police engaging with homophobic content online, that sends a very clear message to our communities... it reinforces this idea that the police can't be trusted and that they (LGBTQ+) might face that discrimination from the police if they are to report something that's happened to them."

She said police needed more comprehensive training to prevent prejudice against rainbow communities.

"Rainbow communities and organisations like us have been trying to have this conversation with the police for years around increasing this competency... and this incident really highlights that it's the time to make those changes."

Offensive social media is not Chris Yates' only way of causing is NZ Police PR headaches. Despite not having been a member of the force since 2018, he’s started "coaching" people to become better police officers, describing himself as a "motivational speaker" on his Facebook page.

"I teach police the one thing you won’t learn in police academy to keep you in the job for 20-plus years," the former policeman’s blurb says.

He still posts photos of himself doing exercise in police uniform – five years after his employment ended – and uses them to market his "coaching" enterprise.

The photos sparked concern at NZ Police that Yates had kept his old police uniform. An investigation was launched but no charges were laid. Yates says they were old photos taken while he was still employed as a policeman, simply being used to advertise his police mentoring skills.

When 1News reached Yates in a cell phone call, he said he had deliberately ignored our former attempts to contact with him through his social media platforms, saying, "It's my page and I'm allowed freedom of speech."

He said: "People are allowed to comment what they want and it’s going to keep going."

In fact, he claimed Blue Line Banter could improve New Zealand policing.

"People are actually voicing how they feel; people agree with the memes that I post. People are unhappy with what’s been going on in the police force."

He said management "should be looking at the fact that staff are unhappy" and "actually using it [Blue Line Banter] to better the police force, not trying to shut it down".

Yates said the "majority" of Blue Line Banter’s thousands of followers across social media platforms were police staff, and "99 per cent" of the followers he spoke with did not find the memes offensive.

"If your feelings are hurt... then you shouldn’t be looking... they’re not overly bad."

He questioned why 1News was reporting negative views of Blue Line Banter, saying, "Why are you trying to undermine a place for police to actually be a little bit of themselves?"

When advised his posts had caused offence, he replied: "That caused me offence."

But Yates conceded the firefighter post was a "mistake", despite telling those offended at the time "go f**k yourself".

"It was probably not quite a great post. I’m sorry that they feel that way and it wasn’t meant to offend anybody."

Yates said he had not made money from the Blue Line Banter pages but when asked if he planned to monetise them in future, he replied "no comment".

He said there was no need for security concerns about police sending copies of the IDs to him via social media because once he’d seen the IDs to verify people were legitimate, he’d deleted the photos immediately each time.

But after our call, Yates made a selfie video to followers of Blue Line Banter’s Facebook.

"A reporter just called me. PNHQ is not happy with the page as such because people are finding it offensive... I am not homophobic at all and I know that you guys aren’t either, and so I apologise if that [content] got taken offence to."

He then revealed he was going to put a stop to the "Operation Covert" group that had required proof of police identity due to others’ security "concerns".

"I want to remind you that PNHQ is watching – they have concerns and there might be an article that gets posted."

He continued: "Sadly, PNHQ is watching and they might use it against you. It really sucks, so they’re not supportive of this group and care [sic] about police officers".

Yates talked about "we" police officers, despite being out of the service for five years.

"We are police officers and we see some nasty stuff."

When asked to comment on the Blue Line Banter phenomenon to 1News, police provided a written statement.

"We are aware of the Blue Line Banter Facebook page and while New Zealand Police have no affiliation with the page, we regularly educate our staff about staying safe online, and give guidance in regard to how to best use social media in a personal capacity," it read.

Although just how closely they believe that guidance is (or isn’t) heeded is reflected in an internal spreadsheet in which the principal adviser of protective security was observed as being "lukewarm" about messaging staff on such matters.

"Suspected he is frustrated," noted a colleague, "with continuing messaging about being responsible online that is ignored."