Greens see racism everywhere

Stuff reports:

The Green Party has called the independent report on the 2007 Urewera raids damning and said a dramatic overhaul of police culture was still needed.

The review, released today, labelled police actions ”unlawful, unjustified and unreasonable”.

The party’s police spokesman, Dave Clendon, said it was not okay to “descend like masked ninjas” on a small community, adding that police thinking about the raids had not fundamentally changed.

He believed racial discrimination played a part on the abuse of rights and illegal detention of innocent people.

“Would the police have raided Remuera in Auckland, or Khandallah in Wellington in the same way?” he asked.

Ummm. Engage brain before operating mouth,

Can anyone think of a high profile raid a couple of years ago in Coatesville? One that involved armed police and helicopters? I’m pretty sure the targets were not Maori, but German and Finnish.

And according to the 2006 census, the ethnicity of Coatesville is 80% European, 4% Maori, 3% Asian and 12% other so the racism claim from the Greens is quite unfounded.