Overseas tourist wants to broadcast his experience with NZ police after he became a victim of the country’s crime epidemic
We’re asking our readers to keep a look out for this video when its released on Youtube.
Generally, people know that tourists are easy prey for criminals in New Zealand – they’re perceived as rich, unaware of their personal safety and aren’t in the country long enough to cause much of a problem after the event. In addition, convicted offenders often receive such ridiculously weak sentences that there is no disincentive not to prey on tourists – they’re easy pickings.
Well now the tourists are fighting back.
One overseas survivor of New Zealand’s crime epidemic wants to put the video of his police interview on Youtube, to show how poorly people like him are treated. Hopefully, by doing so he’ll improve the treatment of future victims and help to raise the standards of New Zealand’s crime investigators.
Here’s how New Zealand’s mainstream media are presenting the story…
A tourist questioned by New Zealand Police has won the right to get a DVD copy of the interview after authorities refused to hand it over because he wanted to post it on YouTube.The Office of the Privacy Commissioner this week released details of the case after the tourist contacted them complaining about his experience.
Details shared on the Office’s website say the man was holidaying here when he filed a police report saying he had been robbed.
“During the investigation, a constable interviewed the complainant. This interview was recorded with the complainant’s consent,” the report says…
Police said they feared a video of the interview shared on the internet would result in ridicule and abuse towards the constable officer who questioned the man.
“We did not agree with this reasoning because section 42(2)b refers to legal duties over documents, not individuals,” the report said.
“While police cited a duty to be a good employer, the act only refers to statutes and common law that prevent an agency from releasing documents.”
In the end, police were required to pass on the interview in a DVD format. However, in a compromise, authorities were allowed to have the interviewing officer’s face pixelated and voice distorted to protect “the constable’s dignity and reputation while also fulfilling police obligations under the Privacy Act.” source
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E2NZ.org 
New incident:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/travel-troubles/89432837/american-tourist-left-with-nothing-after-nelson-van-burglary
American tourist left with nothing after van burglary in Nelson
TIM O’CONNELL AND SAMANTHA GEE
Last updated 09:22, February 17 2017
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An American tourist who had $30,000 worth of gear stolen helped police find the thieves after they sent messages from his Facebook account.
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“I had a lot of lenses, a few camera bodies and high-end outdoor equipment – and my laptop too.”
Also among the estimated 75kg worth of possessions taken was Thompson’s clothing and camping gear, which included an $800 sleeping bag which he called his “baby”.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning he noticed someone had updated his status on Facebook. The posts appeared to be trying to set him up. Thompson said the messages implied he had given his possessions away in exchange for sex.
One post in Thompson’s name said he was “so silly i got so wasted an gave all my stuff to her, now i regret it.[sic]”
Another: “Amphetamine. it is a dangerous thing. it takes me to experience it myself to realise what control it has on you! life goes on [sic].”
Thompson also saw messages that he hadn’t written, sent from his profile to someone he didn’t know.
He had never met the woman posting on Facebook.
The strange messages also caused alarm among his friends and family at home.
In a bizarre twist, he didn’t mention the phrases “this will not change my opinion of New Zealand” and “I would love to return for another visit”.
I totally sympathise with this American tourist (Greg Thompson) and his predicament. It is perhaps ironic (or perhaps not) that I have travelled across the better part of his homeland (by both car and bus) and have never been the victim of any crime. And after my last trip there – two weeks after my return to NZ – in which time I purchased a new car – it was stolen from my driveway. And all my neighbour could say (never acknowledging my car had been stolen) was “I bet you’re glad to be back in New Zealand because America is such a terrible place!”
The reality of the situation is a significant proportion of kiwi society is uneducated, poverty-stricken, angry, desperate, drug-f**ked, predatory, and unsanitary. This underbelly is undoubtedly growing. Nowadays I know very few people (here in NZ) who have not been directly affected by crime – crimes ranging from rape and murder through to car conversion and burglary.
Several weeks ago I fell victim to a ‘break-in’ at my modest holiday home. Because there was little of value to take they simply trashed the place. Had a real bogan kiwifest…
This is truly a sad little criminally infested country.
It’s also worth noting that the police are not entirely to blame for their lack of enthusiasm in enforcing the law when it comes to violent crime in N.Z the courts take a very lenient approach to offenders ,often just a warning and discharge without conviction for an assault which changes the victims life due to the extent of mental and physical harm done to them.this country distinguishes between assaults ,male on female is one distinction ,so this is a more severe crime than a 20 year old body builder beating the crap out of a 65 year old male .Serious assault is catorgorised as a moderate to minor crime here so no surprises that assault and violence are rampant.I lived 23 years in the U.S without being involved in any form of violence,back here for a month my wife and I were assaulted on the street for no reason ,I had recently had a quad bike accident my arm was broken and in a cast as was my ankle ,tough N.Z guys took the opportunity to attack me .yes he was discharged without conviction and went to live in Australia ,wonder why they are sending our scum criminals back to us.
The N.Z police will heavily enforce any kind of motor vehicle infraction ,no matter how minor ,2 km over the speed limit ticket ,they just don’t care that they are criminalising otherwise law abiding people ,they create hatred and resentment against the police force and encourage the lack of respect that leads to real criminal behaviour ,they justify it with ridiculous advertisements billboards and other propaganda ,most other crimes they really aren’t interested in
They do it all for the $$$$$$. I was pulled over and ticketed many years ago for apparently going through an orange light which was just bloody pathetic. This dumb fuck fat cop got off his motorbike and then said i was parked in a bus bay area. I said this is the main road mate, and where exactly does it say ‘bus bay’???? (It wasn’t written on the road, and no signage anywhere) He then said you ARE parked in a bus bay. I said i am not PARKED anywhere, you pulled me over and this ISNT a bus bay, its the side of the road. It wasn’t a bus bay, he was just trying it on. He was just making shit up on the spot to fine me even more money, assuming I was another dumb fuck kiwi like himself. He then got more anal with me when he noticed my ‘pommy’ accent. When i challenged him to PROVE what he was accusing me of he changed the subject and went back to the orange light ‘offence’. Even for a NZ Keystone cop, this guy was thick as two short planks.
I ended up getting out of my car and looking around with my hands up saying “where does it say bus bay!!!” I can’t remember much else, but i do remember him walking off and taking the piss out of me saying “catch you later, maaaaaan” because I had been playing heavy metal music loudly when he pulled me up. I was 25 at the time and had really long dyed black hair and had a Pantera tshirt on.
Without sounding immature, I honestly wanted to punch him in the face, push his motorbike over then speed off. I ended up paying the fine because i just couldn’t be arsed wasting my time getting no where contesting his bullshit ticket.
I don’t even need to mention the amount of parked cars in Christchurch with out of date Rego’s, some nearly as 5 years old, blatantly and stupidly covered up with the window wiper. how pathetic can you get. Get some new rego you cheap twats. Why dont the police notice? Oh thats right, they rarely patrol the streets anymore and dont give a toss.
to be fair Nick there’s a tolerance of 4% during peak and 10% during non-peak.
So with an open road limit of 100kmh this means in off peak non-holiday periods you could do up to 110kmh and be let off with a warning- whilst 110kmh will get a ticket.
But that not with standing most Kiwi motorists find it difficult to grasp the concept of may do up to 100kmh and not must do. So they are on a road with an open speed limit and insist on travelling at 100KM+ even though the road surface is crap, narrow, congested or poor weather conditions would sensibly dictate that reducing speed would be prudent. They are under some misguided impression that every other nation has much higher speed limits. Whilst the reality is the roads that pass for State Highways here would struggle in many instances to be suited for the purpose of goat herding and have much lower speed upper limits.
I think the rioting (“partying”) is so common, it probably is barely newsworthy. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/287472/party-leaves-university-hall-'like-a-war-zone‘
I keep reading that crime is at an all time low in NZ which surprises me. I was out one night in Christchurch and witnessed a riot. Police were in full riot gear and were fighting running battles with a couple of hundred youths. Bottles were flying everywhere and all sorts of stuff on fire. I thought it was going to be a huge news story but didn’t make the news or even get mentioned in the Press. All a bit weird, did I dream it.
It wasn’t recently, probably 4 years ago. Christchurch is a weird parallel universe. Prim and Proper during the day and like the wild west in the early hours. I wouldn’t be surprised at around midnight tonight there will be drag racing down the four avenues, huge convoys of cars called road trains, topless teenage girls driving around and all sorts of weird stuff. I am all for young people having fun but there is something very intimidating about the after hours culture in some of these places.
Not to mention the semi-suppressed hostility that comes out full blown when these clowns get on the piss at night. 5 years bouncing in Christchurch I have seen it all. They are absolute animals. Certified scum. The women are vile, and the men are try hard, macho wannabe gangsta neanderthals.
I started off being diplomatic when I first bounced here, then I descended into full blown violence retaliation. It soon became a very dark and depressing series of events. I could prob write a short book (or make a film) about my nights bouncing here in Christchurch. A few incidents I can reveal:
-big bloke (bigger than me anyway, I’m 5’11) was removed from the bar by myself and my colleagues, including his mates and mouthy girlfriends, for crushing their drinks glasses under their table with their feet. He went for me at the door, and I smacked him in his left eye with a good hard left hook. It gave him a nasty shiner and his eye was bloodshot. I thought he was going to fight back but instead, put his hand on his eye, tears running down his face, and went and told some police near by what I had done!!!! The police came over to speak to me and asked if id punched him and i said you bet your life I have, and id do it again, he went for me, it was self defence. Then the police told me he knew the guy and that he came from a respectful family and was just out for a ‘good time’. I said I don’t give a shite who he is, he was crushing fucking pint glasses like a 5 year old under the table with his wanker mates! Then the cop tries giving me a lecture about being careful about hitting people, totally disregarding what this other prick had done (probably his nephew) and i said i know my rights, it was self defence, and your mate here is now barred for 2 years for being a complete bell end, bye bye now.
-I gave an undesirable who spat in my face an absolute pasting against a waiting taxi outside a rough Irish bar I worked at until my humongous islander colleague dragged me off him. I regretted my last punch into his face because his teeth pierced a hole in the gaps of my knuckles and i needed stitches.
-I was attacked at a different bar, a suburban shithole dive one night, which is situated in an industrial estate, for refusing this gang member entry because he was lippy and his mate was intoxicated. In a moment of stupidly while I turned to let someone out past me from behind as I was standing infront of the entrance, I let my guard down and the gang affiliated guy clocked me one in the face, causing me to have a root canal later on for a wobbly tooth. I was admittedly a bit dazed at first, and he even had the cheek to turn and walk away. I ran up behind him and just threw punches left and right into his head and when I went round the front side of him to carry on punching i tripped over the bar sign and fell arse over tit in-between 2 parked cars and smacked my head on a cars bumper. I was ok tho. Him and his mongrel mates and another guy kicked me while I was down until finally my useless work colleague came running and clothes lined one of them, and the other one got lynched by a group of metal heads who he had been rude to as were friendly locals that i knew. When I got up with sore ribs this gang guy threw another punch into my face, then before he threw another I smashed his face with my elbow and he fell like a sack of shit onto the floor, where I finished him off with a barrage of nasty punches to the face and ended with a facial foot stomp. The place looked like someone had been stabbed to death. There was blood everywhere. All up the cars, my face and arms were covered in blood, blood pissing out my nose, and the gang guy was drenched in blood, his white tshirt now completely red. His face-alot worse than mine. The police arrived, took one look at him and CONGRATULATED me. I couldn’t believe it. He was a well known gang moron and I think they were impressed that someone had giving him a hiding. He was cuffed and put into a van, along with one of the other guys. The 3rd guy had done a runner. I pressed charges and the gang guy went to court, and he had to pay me $300, which barely paid for the root canal I had to have done.
-fighting and removing skinheads from a metal concert
-removing violent 50 year old blokes from a music concert acting like 15 year olds
-dragging out a woman who was out of her face on drugs who smashed a bottle into my head when I walked past for no reason. She told me Jesus was going to kill me and I was going to hell.
-shoving more 50 year old blokes back who told me they were old enough to be my father and could do what they wanted.
-removing complete weirdos who harass random people in bars
-removing weirdos who pick up other peoples drinks and start drinking them
-removing morons who think its ok to walk up to the bands and touch them or their instruments while playing, who leave their drinks on their amps or on the floor that spills and goes all over their equipment.
-restraining and tackling dickheads who fence jump round the back of venues
-removing whoever else i removed
Now i’d like to say that i’m well aware this sounds like violent insanity, and it was. I am, by nature, a rather placid guy who would never be interested in a fight, being violent, or causing a situation. I started doing the doors to earn extra money for my film making gear and what not. But at some point I became involved in so much violence every weekend that it became entirely normal, and In the end even looked forward to scrapping with whatever scum bag had the nerve to attack me for no reason at all other than being denied entry, being removed for being intoxicated…look at them the wrong way…. whatever it was.
I think a little part of me died inside while doing that wretched job. Hours upon hours of bouncing at suffocating, horrid, putrid, awfully smell, nasty, negative, unfriendly bars packed with utter pond life. I began having a few whiskey shots before clocking on shift to ease my anxiety. I started drinking the alcohol I confiscated off punters. Downed it in the toilets and went back out on the doors. Anyone who I had given enough warning to back up out of my personal space with their threats I’d grab by the throat and throw them backwards onto the floor or into the wall. Or wrestle them onto the floor. I just didn’t give a shit. I was full of rage with kiwis and NZ and how i had been treated all these years. It had finally boiled down to me literally kicking the living shit out anyone who crossed me. I didn’t care about the consequences. I was stuck in hell.
I also had alot of debt to pay off and i was pretty much forced to work every fri and sat for 2 years without a break.
I would only be like this because of the amount of scum I dealt with. Just pure scum wanting to take me on for doing my job and being a ‘pom’. Alot of bars I worked on my own because the bar owners were too tight arsed to pay for 2 guards. Who was going to back me up if I was jumped? No one. Which is why i had a no bullshit approach. You have to fight fire with fire with kiwis, a smack in the gob or a choke hold is all they understand. Its unpleasant but the truth. I’m not a self proclaiming tough guy. I just don’t take any shit from anyone. You get away with so much here. The amount of situations i got involved in here would have cost me my security badge in the UK. It is the wild west here.
All those nights driving home into the early hours of the morning after bouncing feeling mentally raped.
Many more ugly unpleasant stories i could tell but id rather try my best to forget about it and not trouble anyone any further lol.
Looking back now it seems unreal i came away mostly unscathed. They were some really dark times for me. 2012. 2013. 2014…A very dangerous trade to be in here and i wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Especially not in Christchurch. Half the people I worked with were something else as well, complete dickheads. Backstabbers. Bullshitters. ‘I was in the special forces’. Bollocks. Alot of them were just straight out pathological liars. I have genuinely done boxing since i was 18, and it came in very handy. I doubt they were the ‘mixed martial arts’ superstars that they bragged about being. “I was a bodyguard for blah blah famous person and im good friends with their son/daughter”…yeh…sure…now you work at some shithole bar earning $20 an hour.
Kiwis can not fight, they are all mouth and are only ‘tough’ in numbers. They are cowards. They like to pick on the weak and easy targets. All of them failed at trying to intimidate me.
Kiwis are insane. They are psychologically disturbed. They are volatile.
That job messed with my head, as with everything else here.
Kiwis are insane. They are psychologically disturbed. They are volatile.
That job messed with my head, as with everything else here.
I can identify Nebula. Years ago I worked in a strip club as a dancer, as I really needed extra cash at the time to re- roof my house. I had plenty of dance training so I thought that it could be fun (kind of). But the pond life that I encountered was what killed it. Then one night I found an unconscious body in the car park, and I started to get really grossed out and scared. I got a Rottweiler as well as my existing dog, and would have them waiting in my car, as going home in the small hours and not being followed was a concern. Just getting safely to my car was an issue. And it was psychologically stressful as was being subjected to these types of endless lowlifes that flowed in. The bouncer that worked there, that I can recall in my time at the club, was really small, but said that he was experienced at street fighting. and he assured me that on stripping out calls (the most dangerous) he carried a knife The stripping out calls paid really well, and I was pressured to do one on a docked boat one night, as there was no one else available to do it. While dancing I quickly perceived that something really bad was going to happen to me, and the other woman present, friends of the big Maori guy who had hired me would not look in my eye. The big Maori man grabbed me and started to rough handle me and my outfit / gear nearly ripping it. I was on a table at the time and wrestled out of his grasp, took my high healed shoes in my hands, and ran off the boat to where the car was on the docks. My poor bouncer eventually emerged off the boat looking green; – clearly he had been threatened. We got the hell out of there, and I never did a solo stripping outcall again.
Sometimes at the club us strippers, tired and burned out, would be requested to do another show, after the first, if the fine and upstanding New Zealand police turned up. They were the recipients of a free show – part of a deal with the owner of the club. I refused outright to dance for them. If this was now, in my present mindset, I would dance for those police and make it really terrible, maybe with some experimental types of audience participation.
Bottom line is the police in New Zealand are useless. I experience more crime in my time in New Zealand than I ever did in the US. When the police were called they were uninterested and ineffective. In fact, when a 15 year-old stole $2000 in cash and merchandise from my house, I was told there was nothign the police could do because she was under 16. When I said, “That’s okay. I have her stuff and will hold onto it until she comes back to collect it.” was told that I could not do that as it wasn’t my property!!! Shortly after that a woman came into the police station and the policeman asked if he cold help her, to which I replied, “Don’t expect much help form these guys.” At this point the policeman came out from behind the counter and asked me to step into the back office. When I did he said he didn’t “appreciate my comments.” To which I replied, “I was only reflecting my own personal experience that you weren’t at all helpful.”
Keystone cops.