Police target family man because of his submission to a select committee
Dieuwe de Boer writes at the BFD:
I was just finishing up dinner with my two oldest kids. My wife was feeling unwell and feeding our four-week-old baby in bed. I had just gotten the icecream out for the kids when the doorbell rang.
I opened the door to see a number of police officers outside. They served me with a search warrant under Section 6 of the Search and Surveillance Act 2012. Half a dozen armed police officers swarmed in the front door (holstered sidearms only) as several more ran around the sides of the house.
So a dozen armed officers raid the house of this dad. Why?
The warrant claimed they had reason to believe I was in possession of a prohibited magazine fitted to a “.22RL lever-action rifle. Blued metal, brown wooden stock.” The officer told me I had posted about it online, which I had—in my public written submission against the Firearms Amendment Act passed last year.
So on the basis of a select committee submission, they send a dozen armed officers to his place.
It was no longer in my possession when the police raided my house. They departed empty-handed after turning the place inside out for ninety minutes and left me with my firearms and a visibly shaken wife who broke down in tears.
The Police could have phoned him up and asked if he still had it. They could have done many many things short of a dozen armed officers raiding him.
This is for a lever-action .22LR that’s designed to hit paper or be used to hunt bunnies. What happened to going after the “weapons designed to kill people” as the police minister Stuart Nash has claimed?
The Police really have a warped priority. And was he targeted due to the fact he has been a critic of the law change?
Graeme Edgeler points out the Police may be in trouble if they acted on the basis of a privileged select committee submission. They deny it was on the basis of that, but it seems hardly credible that it wasn’t.