Free Republic

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster says an alternative to police's de-escalation approach towards anti-mandate protesters would involve tear gas and batons being deployed on Parliament's grounds. Coster told Q=A'2 Jack Tame that police were taking its existing de-escalation approach as it believed the alternative of a forceful pushback could not be justified. "I think police could clear the protest, but I don't think the harm that would come from how we need to do that is acceptable relative to the harm that the protest is doing," he said. "The balance we have here is keeping the peace and enforcing the law....

A man from Sri Lanka believed to have been inspired by the Islamic State stabbed six people at a grocery store in New Zealand before being killed by law enforcement on Friday. According to a statement from Commissioner of Police Andrew Coster, the unnamed man entered the Countdown Supermarket at LynnMall on 2:30 p.m. local time, took a knife from a shelf and began attacking people. The Covert Police Specialist Tactics Group, which had tracked the man over concerns about extreme views, responded to the attack and stopped him around 60 seconds after he began the rampage. Due to court...