A police officer has been convicted with assault with a weapon following an unlawful arrest in which excessive force was used against a motorcycle rider not wearing a helmet in Auckland last year.<\/p>\n
The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) oversaw a police investigation into the allegations, with a summary report released on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The officer attempted to stop the rider at a gas station in April 2024, using their patrol car to pin the bike against bollards protecting the gas pump.<\/p>\n
“The police investigation established that the officer intended to stop the rider because they were not wearing a helmet,” the report summary read.<\/p>\n
“The officer said while pulling into the forecourt, he accidentally pressed the accelerator pedal which caused the car to drive forward into the motorcycle.”<\/p>\n
The officer had not activated lights or sirens, nor signalled the rider to stop, making the attempted traffic stop unlawful.<\/p>\n
The only offence committed by the rider \u2013 failing to wear a helmet \u2013 was an infringement-only offence, meaning the officer had no legal grounds for an arrest.<\/p>\n
When the rider ran off following the crash, the officer used pepper spray and their Taser to arrest the rider.<\/p>\n
Police deemed the use of pepper spray reasonable, but Taser footage later revealed the officer fired the device at the rider while they were running away. <\/p>\n
The first attempt was ineffective, but the second deployment brought the rider to the ground.<\/p>\n
After the Taser\u2019s effects wore off, the rider moved to their knees and was instructed to lie on their stomach. The officer then fired the Taser a third time.<\/p>\n
Acting Auckland City District Commander Inspector Grant Tetzlaff told 1News police acknowledged the summary report.<\/p>\n
“Police found each use of the Taser was unnecessary and excessive and he was charged with careless driving and assault with a weapon.”<\/p>\n
The officer pleaded guilty and was convicted of assault with a weapon, however, he was discharged without conviction on the careless driving charge, Tetzlaff said.<\/p>\n
“An employment process was commenced; however the officer resigned before the matter concluded.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A police officer has been convicted with assault with a weapon following an unlawful arrest in which excessive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-38212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-auckland","9":"tag-crime-and-justice","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}