New Zealand First leader says the police are paying the price for poor research and poor judgment around the 2007 terror raids.
Police Commissioner Mike Bush was in Ruatoki today to deliver an official apology to Ngai Tuhoe and the people of Te Urewera for actions the Independent Police Conduct Authority found were unlawful, unjustified and unreasonable.
In the course of a national round-up of people who had taken part in military-style training camps in Te Urewera, police mounted an illegal road block on the road into Ruatoki, and detained people while their vehicles and homes were searched.
Mr Peters says there was a rush to judgment when the raids happened, but the police case got more shaky as time went on.
"What happened there was an over the top reaction, people's rights were seriously infringed, and that has happened on countless occasions in different circumstances and it should not have. Better intelligence on the ground, better research would have told them that was not the way to act, so going down and apologising is the very least they could do," he says.
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