Ross Meurant - Concerns About Police Culture

Concerns About Police Culture

In 2011, Meurant was interviewed in the documentary Operation 8, which was strongly critical of the anti-terror raids in Ruatoki in 2007. In it, he described the negative aspects of police culture and the actions that stemmed from it.

In Sept 2011, Meurant penned a damning critique of the NZ police in North & South magazine. The article describes police culture in disparaging terms likening it to a forest in which new recruits get lost. Meurant discusses a number of well known cases such as the Crew murders and says it was more than just a couple of detectives on the case who were corrupt. He says that planting of a cartridge in the Crew's garden was condoned by police management at the time. He makes the case that some officers are willing to break the law in a misguided belief that the end justifies the means and the means "is best decided by you and others in your sub culture of police, for what better epitomises the values of a decent society than those cherished by the men and women in blue?" He also wrote Too many loose ends to ignore Crewe case in which he states: "It is my view that the police then, as they do now, suffer greatly from the misconception that preservation of the police is more important than preservation of the rule of law."

Another critique of police sub culture was published in the Sunday Star Times, titled Deep in the Forest in which he wrote: "Every new entrant (to the police) runs the same gauntlet. No recruit is ever formally "taught to use violence, to lie and cover up. None of my mentors did that to me and I never did it to those whom I mentored. But the culture sends a very clear message: 'When you witness transgression by a colleague, keep your mouth shut'." Meurant also penned Officers in charge of weapons culpable in which he discussed the police shooting of Stephen John Bellingham in Christchurch after Bellingham was attacking cars with a hammer. "Based on what I knew of the incident I do not believe police were justified in shooting to kill."

Meurant also wrote a column "Urewera trial shows the cops have been getting it wrong". in which he criticized the police for the raids of October 2007 in which 17 people were arrested - allegedly as terrorists. Most of the charges were dropped the charges four years later. Meurant believes the police abrogated the basic legal rights of defendants to "no detention without charge" and "to be taken before a court as soon as possible".