New Zealand police exonerated in the killing of young Maori

Senior Constable Keith Abbott says one of the most irritating things about his trials for shooting and killing Waitara man Steven Wallace was constantly hearing people say he shot Mr Wallace for smashing windows.

"He [Mr Wallace] was threatening to kill me, threatening to bash my head in," Mr Abbott said. "It wasn't until the depositions that some people actually realised what had happened."

He said the worst moment of the 2 1/2-year process was his first appearance in the New Plymouth District Court in October last year, when his lawyer sought name suppression after the private prosecution had been laid.

"I was only there for five or 10 minutes, but the first appearance was the worst."

Despite the gruelling 2 1/2 week High Court trial, Mr Abbott said he was always confident of a positive outcome. "[Lawyer] Susan [Hughes] did a fantastic job and I think you only had to watch the jury when she was addressing them."

He also paid tribute to the thousands of supporters who had contacted him.

"It's been 2 1/2 years of, well some people say hell, but I'd describe it as a period of great highs and lows really."

Mr Abbott said he would go back to work as a policeman, but not in Taranaki. "I've made my home elsewhere and I'm quite happy where I am. There is no reason why I shouldn't go back to work."

His family had had to live through a huge period of uncertainty, which had taken its toll. "My wife has been extremely supportive and she has been a strength. We always remained positive, but this has been around for such a long time."

Two Queens Counsel lawyers did not bill the Wallace family for their advice but the cost of bringing a private prosecution is still crippling for them says John Rowan, QC.

Mr Rowan, who became involved with the family soon after Steven Wallace was shot in Waitara in April 2000, said the trial of Constable Keith Abbott should have been conducted and paid for by the Crown.

The Wallace family were not eligible for legal aid because it applied only to defendants. Because it was a private prosecution, they were responsible for many court-related costs such as witnesses, transport and accommodation.

He said he was hopeful that the Crown would be "generous enough" to bear some of the costs.

Mr Rowan said he and Mike Behrens received no payment from the Wallaces for their legal work.

But they were reimbursed for some costs, such as toll calls and travel.

In addition, Mr Rowan may receive limited payment in the form of legal aid for his work on the upcoming inquest, and get part of a Justice Department grant for his submissions for the upcoming Police Complaints Authority matter.

Mr Rowan said that although Constable Abbott had been acquitted, he hoped the Wallace family would try to move on with their lives.

But another source close to the family said the cost, financially and emotionally, over the past 30 months had been huge.

Steven's mother, Raewyn Wallace, told the Herald the family had not been fighting the police force, "just one man".

"All I wanted was to tell the truth, and we didn't get it out," she said.

"As soon as Steven was shot, it was a cover-up."

She said she would not do any extended media interviews unless the family was paid.

"The police have the Government behind them for money, what do we have?"

When asked how much the family were seeking, she said: "How much have you got?"

She said she had written down the events of the past 30 months and intended to write a book to make some money.

The family apparently remortgaged their house, raised money by sausage-sizzles and hangi and tapped into a network of websites to raise money.

One of the websites, Peace Movement Aotearoa, promotes the Steven Wallace Trust Fund, and an 0900 number to make an automatic donation of $20.

One law for all;

In other words:-

Let the justice system run its natural transparent course with the prosecution firstly facing the minimalist prima facie hurdle at depositions having only to establish that the allegations if proven at trial amount to a crime. If a case to answer is made out, there would be a trial wherein, after all of the evidence has been heard and tested and, the adversaries have subjectively argued for the ear of the jury, the learned Court will carefully instruct twelve independent/objective juror's on the appropriate means by which they should decide the facts to determine what occurred or what was omitted to be done, in the early morning on 30 April 2000, at Waitara, leading to the killing of STEVEN JAMES WALLACE and, if certain facts are found, what guilt, if any, should be attributed to the killer, KEITH ABBOT and his accomplices. It is only by this transparent means can all New Zealanders be assured that not only has justice been done, in the matter of the killing, but more importantly it has manifestly been seen to have been done.

This report is dated 5 May at Waitara at 10.30pm and its contents will be used as grounds to issue an information against KEITH ABBOT alleging that KEITH ABBOT either murdered, or in the alternative, could have prevented his killing of, STEVEN JAMES WALLACE.

The government has agreed to pay the bill to defend Constable Keith Abbott in his depositions hearing over the death of Waitara man Steven Wallace.

ONE News has learned that last Thursday Cabinet signed off $130,000 to the Police Association to cover Abbott's defence at depositions.

The union has paid for Abbott's costs from day one, but the government has now picked up the tab.

Police Minister George Hawkins says the money has not come out of the front line police budget but is from an emergency contingency fund.

The Wallace family says it is devastated by the news that the government is helping fund Abbott's defence.

Raewyn Wallace questioned whether the case had become a political argument as opposed to a legal one and is concerned she may be fighting the government as well as the police.

The Wallace family have mortgaged their house "to the hilt" and while grateful to the public for the help they have received, Raewyn Wallace said the news of the government's role is a huge blow.

The Police Minister has not ruled out the possibility of more payments to Constable Abbott's defence if the high court trial goes ahead.

The government is defending its decision to pay $130,000 towards Constable Keith Abbott's court case.

The family of Steven Wallace, who was slain in Waitara by Abbott two years ago, say the government should also pay their legal bills.

Cabinet has authorised the payment to the Police Association to cover Abbott's defence at a depositions hearing in February.

A spokesman for the Wallace family, Terry Wallace, says they are out of pocket as a result of their efforts to prosecute Abbott and have had to mortgage their home to fund the private prosecution.

Wallace says it's unfair that the government is supporting Abbott.

But the government says it's paying because the constable was on duty at the time.

And one constitutional expert believes the government may have a responsibility to pay.

"Constable Abbott was allegedly doing his duty, he was in the line of fire, of duty, and as a consequence the employer can be argued to be justifiably paying for a prosecution that arises out of something that happened on the job," says lawyer Mai Chen.

Police Minister George Hawkins says he will consider further funding of Abbott's defence if it becomes necessary.

A police inquiry into the killing of a young Maori has exonerated the police officer involved on the basis that he acted in self-defence. The report, made public nearly four months after the young man's slaying, has provoked demonstrations and anger from Maori protesters, who accuse the police of racism. It has also left the victim's family vowing to fight for an independent inquiry into the killing.

The events leading up to Wallace's death began at about 3.30am on Sunday April 30, when, after coming home from a New Plymouth nightclub, he exploded into a rage and drove to the local fire station where he smashed several windows. The young man proceeded to a supermarket, smashing more windows, before heading to the police station where he broke more windows. He then drove wildly along the main street of the rural township of Waitara, until his car collided with a taxi. Leaving the car, he walked along the street, smashing shop windows with a baseball bat and golf club.

What happened next was initially the subject of conflicting accounts. Wallace was confronted by two police officers, one of whom shot him at close range, firing at least four bullets into his chest. The cops claim he had broken the windscreen of a police vehicle, then advanced towards them, still wielding the baseball bat and threatening to kill them. According to the police version, Wallace was shot while continuing to approach them after a warning shot had been fired over his head. An ambulance arrived shortly after 4am and took Wallace to the main provincial hospital in New Plymouth, where he later died.

Wallace's family, however, appeared on national television expressing profound outrage over the slaying. They said they could produce a witness who would testify that Wallace had been gunned down in the centre of the main street, after he had thrown the bat and club onto a nearby footpath. Wallace's mother accused the police of murdering her son for breaking windows. A sister-in-law, Donna Thompson, observed that the police had clearly made no attempt to disable the young man by shooting him in the legs to knock him to the ground.

The family also wanted to know why nobody was allowed to help Wallace as he lay mortally wounded in the middle of the street. Speaking on behalf of the family a day later, a relative said “They shot him five times... and left him lying there and asking for help. Watching him die like a dog in the middle of the street”. The family accused the officers of leaving Wallace unattended for up to 20 minutes before the ambulance arrived. The funeral, held four days later, became an occasion for members of the tightly knit local community to express their shared grief and offer support to the Wallace family. Almost a thousand mourners attended the funeral, with the local Maori meeting house overflowing for the hour-long service.

Against a background of growing public unease over the circumstances of the shooting, Prime Minister Helen Clark issued a cautious statement expressing the view that “poor relations” between the police and local Maori had a “bearing” on the shooting. A number of government Maori MP's accused the police of outright racism. Alliance MP Willie Jackson called for the police officer who shot Wallace to be charged. There was “absolutely nothing that can vindicate the police over this young fella being killed... He didn't have a firearm; he didn't deserve to die,” Jackson declared. Labour MP Mahara Okeroa criticised police for failing to use “minimum force”. The government's official Race Relations Conciliator, Rajen Prasad visited Waitara and emerged from a meeting with Maori elders to announce he was considering an inquiry into race relations in the area.

A further debate arose about whether the police officer's identity should be revealed. In a landmark anti-suppression case in the High Court, the New Zealand Herald won the right to publish the policeman's name—the first time in a case involving a police killing. However, under intense pressure from the Police Association, which claimed that the officer's personal safety was at risk, the Herald declined to name him, and was supported in its stand by the rest of the news media. The National Business Review eventually broke ranks and published the name. The newspaper expressed concern that failure to reveal the identity of the policeman would establish a precedent for media self-censorship that could later rebound.

All of these issues resurfaced with the release of the results of the police inquiry. Still referring to the officer involved as “Constable A”, the report concluded that Wallace's actions were sufficient to constitute a threat to the officer's life and to justify the shooting. Challenged by Labour MP Georgina Beyer to explain why the report failed to include statements from a witness that contradicted the police version of events, Police Commissioner Robinson dismissively replied that the Attorney General's office had examined the testimony and found that it did not stand up. The police also explicitly denied that there was any racial element in Wallace's shooting—indeed, it emerged that the officer himself was part Maori.

The day after the report's release, about 50 demonstrators, mainly Maori, staged a protest in the police headquarters building in Wellington, while another 100-strong demonstration blocked access to the police station in the northern provincial centre of Whangarei. In Waitara, a candlelight vigil was held by a group of Wallace's supporters. A tribal elder, Tom Hunt, warned that tensions in the town remained explosive. “Police have lit a wick that will continue to smoulder and splutter, but has a hugely dangerous potential to cause an explosion,” he said.

In contrast, the Labour Government quickly moved to give its full backing to the report, softening its previous criticisms of police relationships with Maori. Speaking in parliament, Finance Minister Michael Cullen said the government accepted the police had “properly investigated the issues” to determine whether they needed to proceed with a prosecution. Cullen went on to deny that the Prime Minister had ever “accused the New Zealand police of racism” but noted approvingly that the police were taking “active steps” to improve relationships with Maori. None of the previously outspoken Maori MPs from either Labour or the Alliance, including Beyer, who has an affiliation with Wallace's tribe, expressed any disagreement with the government's position.

M. Cunningham photos....Northern Advocate Newspaper

Maori activist Ben Nathan,foreground right,
leads a haka outside the Whangarei Police Station,
showing hurt and anger over the death of Steven Wallace
who was killed by fatal gunshot wounds fired by police officer constable Keith Abbot.
Authorities say the police officer was acting in self-defence.
Steven Wallace was armed with a golf club.
Steven's family have lodged a private prosecution against the police officer.

Missing from all of the claims and counter-claims over the shooting and the report, has been any discussion of the social and economic roots of this tragic case. Certainly, it is not unusual for police shootings internationally to have a racist character, and it is often the case that police departments are a breeding ground of deeply ingrained racial prejudice. Moreover, among Maori there is a strongly-held sense of injustice about the heavy-handed and oppressive manner in which police have historically treated them. The last shooting to evoke a similar degree of controversy was the killing, in the 1980s, of another Maori, Paul Chase, when police burst into his home in the early hours of the morning, without warning, and gunned him down as he emerged from his bedroom carrying an iron bar.

Yet in this case, the rush by various Maori spokesmen on the one hand, and government representatives on the other, to depict the shooting as a matter of racism serves a definite political purpose. It acts to divert attention from the explosive class tensions that are now breaking through the surface of New Zealand society after 15 years of “market” economics and the social polarisation produced by it.

Within the last two weeks alone, there have been daily reports of a succession of apparently motiveless murders, robberies with violence and infant deaths as a result of extreme levels of child abuse. While there is no evidence of a recent increase in the number of police shootings, an observable intensification in police operations against young people has taken place in working class and rural areas. One of the issues to emerge in the wake of the shooting has been a widely held grievance, on the part of Waitara people, about the level of police harassment of locals over minor legal infringements. The officer at the centre of the shooting, while based at the Waitara police station, had received recent firearms training. He was a member of the armed offenders squad, a group of specially selected and trained police officers who are called off normal duties to deal with emergencies, particularly those involving firearms. This officer had, some years earlier, been party to a previous shooting during an armed bank robbery in New Plymouth.

To understand the Wallace killing, one must examine the impact of government policies in New Zealand over the past two decades. This is expressed most sharply in the plight of working class youth of all races. Steven Wallace embodied, in a particularly acute form, the social and psychological pressures exerted on his entire generation. While the media rushed to find evidence of previous offences in order to depict him as a “troublemaker”, the public profile that has emerged is of a popular and bright young man, with a prominent sporting history and a record of high academic achievement. One of the town's most promising young people, Wallace had attended Victoria University of Wellington in 1997. Unable to afford the steep fees required for his chosen field, architecture, he returned to live in Waitara.

Like many young people, Wallace developed a drinking problem. His friends related how he would become angry and difficult to control when very drunk. He had also been charged with the cultivation of cannabis. Wallace never received any counselling or help, despite having accumulated a police record for minor offenses involving fighting and violence.

On the night he was killed, Wallace returned home with a blood alcohol content two and a half times the legal limit for driving. Other members of his family vacated the house, concerned for their safety in his emotionally charged condition. In response, he launched into the vandalism spree that brought him face-to-face, in an almost suicidal state, with the armed police who were to shoot him.

The psychological and emotional state of young people like Steven Wallace can be directly attributed to the social conditions in which they are struggling to mature. New Zealand, which has been held up internationally since 1984 as the laboratory of free-market economics, now has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the world. Youth in rural and working class towns such as Waitara have suffered severely from the economic restructuring policies of successive governments. Towns throughout the province carry the scars of rural decline—vacant shops, local hospitals and services closed, declining educational opportunities, scarce provision of social activities or entertainment.

Waitara itself has, over the past 15 years, seen the closure of the Swanndri clothing factory, the small-scale but locally significant Subaru car assembly plant, a wool scouring plant and most recently the town's mainstay, the Affco meat processing works, with the loss of 1,500 jobs. The number of registered unemployed in the town of 6,000 has risen from 700 to 1,000 in the last three years. The unemployment rate for the Taranaki region, which includes New Plymouth and Waitara, is 9.8 percent, compared with the current national average of 6.7 percent. With Maori making up 40 percent of the town's population, the assault on jobs and wages has impacted harshly on the Maori community. But it has been keenly felt by every section of the working class.

The majority of youth in the region can look ahead to a future that is bleak, holding little promise. There is nothing for them in the towns and suburbs in which they grew up. Within the last week the major tertiary education facility in the province, Taranaki Polytechnic, announced course closures and the sacking of 70 teaching staff due to falling enrolments. Increasingly, young people are forced to leave or face joblessness, poverty and a total lack of personal fulfillment.

Two more official inquiries are still to be conducted into the killing of Steven Wallace, one by the Police Complaints Authority, and one by the coroner. It is unlikely that either will overturn the results of the police investigation. Whatever the outcome, however, one thing is certain: the social circumstances that, in the final analysis, produced Steven Wallace's death will produce many more unless and until they are addressed at the most fundamental level by the working class as a whole.

17.08.2000

Waitara Maori are warning that the policeman cleared of blame for killing Steven Wallace could be in danger if he returns to the Taranaki town.

The warning last night followed comments from Police Commissioner Rob Robinson that the constable was "intensely relieved" and apparently committed to continuing his career after a police investigation found he had acted lawfully.

A decision on whether he would return to Waitara would be between the constable and the central district police commander, Superintendent Mark Lammas.

Otaraua hapu member Tom Hunt said the constable had been seen in Waitara several times since he shot Mr Wallace, aged 23, with four rounds from his Glock pistol early on April 30 during a 64-second standoff.

"I think it is provocative of him to return. He is flaunting the fact that he has no respect for killing a talented young man who was a brother, a son, a cousin."

Asked whether the policeman's life might be in danger, Mr Hunt said: "Of course. It would be foolish of him to return to Waitara when it could provoke a response that could mean danger for him or others."

It is understood the constable, a Maori who has been an armed offenders squad member since 1986, is still living in Taranaki so his two young sons can continue their schooling. The family's home in Waitara, which is under close surveillance, is on the market.

The police investigation resulted in a 180-page report into the events surround the shooting. The report concluded that the constable had acted lawfully and should not face any charges.

It included a legal opinion from the Deputy Solicitor-General and a detailed account of the events at Waitara on the morning of April 30.

Mr Robinson said it was clear that the constable had feared for his life and shot Mr Wallace in self-defence.

No on-duty police officer has been prosecuted for shooting a member of the public for 60 years.

Mr Hunt said: "We will not engage in any illegal activities. We will not be kind on police if we think they are doing things wrong.

"We are already aware of things ... and we are trying to contain them at present. I think we are in for a torrid time."

The Otaraua hapu community centre remained open overnight. "We are here for people who are angry and want to vent things in here, rather than in a less constructive way."

Last night, police presence in the township was heavier than usual and it is understood Taranaki police were told not to take leave this week in case of fallout from the report.

Yesterday morning, in a copy-cat incident, a relative of Mr Wallace stormed the Waitara police station armed with a golf club and made threats. Police are investigating.

On the streets, many were angry. "If he is so innocent, put him before a jury and let 12 lay people make a decision, not just a Police Commissioner," said one.

"This is a police state," said another. "If that was you or me we would have been charged."

A sister of Mr Wallace said the report was "full of lies" and her brother was not violent towards other people. "He had all night to hurt someone if he wanted - he was only breaking windows."

A lawyer for the Wallace family, John Rowan, QC, said some aspects of the criminal investigation were cause for serious concern and he was continuing an independent inquiry.

Terry Wallace, an uncle, said the family were disappointed and still grieving. "In our opinion, it is not acceptable for a man or woman to be shot for being angry."

The family were taking a private prosecution against police, he said on television later.

Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia issued a statement on behalf of the Labour Maori caucus calling for an urgent review of police systems and processes.

Significantly, he reserved judgment pending a Police Complaints Authority report. It was essential that the authority conducted a full, open and extensive inquiry.

"If there are still outstanding questions at the end of the Police Complaints Authority inquiry, we expect that calls for another independent inquiry will be renewed."

Prime Minister Helen Clark, caught between the anger of some of her Maori MPs and support for police in the community, declined to be interviewed on the report.

In the days after Mr Wallace was shot she said the incident must be seen against the background of the police attitude to Maori.

Act's Ken Shirley and National's Tony Ryall called for Helen Clark to apologise to police.

Police Minister George Hawkins extended his sympathy to Mr Wallace's family. He expressed confidence in the police investigation and the Crown Law Office review of its findings.

But Green Party police spokesman Keith Locke said the Wallace report gave police the nod to shoot unarmed offenders.