The appointment of Richard Chambers as the New Zealand Police Commissioner has raised alarm-bells from community safety group, People Against Prisons Aotearoa (PAPA).

Chambers has indicated that he is ‘open’ to routinely arming New Zealand Police. PAPA spokesperson, Emmy Rākete, says this would be ‘disastrous’.

‘We don’t want to end up like America. We’ve seen too many stories of black people being killed by routinely armed cops.’

‘More cops with guns will mean more dead Māori kids.’

Currently, New Zealand Police are not routinely armed. While they have access to firearms in their vehicles, they do not regularly have guns attached to the hip.

‘New Zealanders do not want to see cops walking around with guns. American-style policing will lead to American-style gun violence.’

Rākete says there will be widespread resistance to any move to routinely arm Police Officers.

‘On Tuesday, we saw tens of thousands of people marching for Te Tiriti. The Police should expect resistance from Māori when our lives are on the line.’

PAPA is calling on Chambers to immediately rule out any routine arming of New Zealand cops.

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