When did it become a bad thing to give cops a little hell?
Last Sunday, a New Zealand news site ran a provocative photo of a surfer giving hell to cops brought in to police the country’s draconian no-surfing laws.
The caption read, “A surfer is not happy to be spoken to by police for flouting lockdown rules at a West Auckland beach.”
Now, the surfer, who says the upraised digit was aimed at a tabloid photographer and not the cops, says he’s been hammered with death threats against him and his family.
A west Auckland surfer says threats have been made against him and his family after the Stuff news site published a photo of him with a caption erroneously describing him as “not happy” to be spoken to by police.
In the photo, published on April 5, the man is seen holding his surfboard and giving the middle finger to the camera while being spoken to by a police officer. He says the photographer had been hounding the surfers for a while and he was unhappy with the photographer, not the police officers.
The full caption beneath the photograph reads: “A surfer is not happy to be spoken to by police for flouting lockdown rules at a West Auckland beach.”
On closer examination it is clear the surfer is not looking at the police officer standing nearby, but directly at the camera.
The man, who was photographed going for a final surf at his local beach on Sunday, says he has been threatened with being tasered, shot and hung in multiple Facebook groups and reddit threads.
“When I walked up the beach I did the fingers to the photographer skulking around the beach, thinking nothing of it. I went and spoke to the police. They were lovely and were clear with their instruction and delivered their message and I acknowledged their advice and agreed.
“We then continued to chat for about 10 minutes. That afternoon I became aware of an article on Stuff using a photo of me. The caption of the photo implied I did the fingers to the police and resisted their advice. This is not true.”
He says he has had hundreds if not thousands of “horrific” comments – many driven by one stranger online who continues to share the article in community Facebook groups throughout the country.
“Over the following hours I was made aware of the photo being shared and some pretty scary comments being made. This escalated to the point that hundreds of people were saying all sorts of nasty stuff believing I did the fingers to the police.”
More, here, although the disturbing point, I think, is, when did it become a bad thing to give cops a little hell?
Specifically, when did surfers put their own necks under the police jackboot?
Flipping off a cop is almost always the right thing to do. This guy should charge ’em head on. I’ve got death threats online, I tell them to meet me at the park 2 blocks from my house. They never show up. It’s a cool park right in front of the beach with cool women about, so no loss hanging out an hour to see if I can score a fight. There’s a field nearby where the homeless people are always fighting and carrying on and the cops don’t go there. Local throw down spot. If someone shows up with a gun and kills me? Good. FTW.
Kiwis ought to hold there heads in shame ….disgusting
How did this freeman fuckwit not make it into the four houses full of the world most annoying surfers? I would let Ben Gravy and Joel Tudor spit roast my brain if it would drown out this dipshits voice.
This is a fucking grand old time for attention seekers.
It’s the new cigaretts
My initial thought: surely there’s a lot of unpatrolled n isolated NZ coast to surf.
Second thought: cop looks sorta hot.
Shit, had to grab my readers and zoom..You are correct
It’s starting – Cabin Fever !
One thing I wish they’d get open again here is the fucken recycling centres.
That way I can dump all my empties without feeling too guilty.
Jeez, much longer and I’ll have to rent a mini skip …
Oh man, the can & bottle recycling bummer! I tried doing that for awhile but my property started to look like the recycle center because of the bags of them that started piling up. Minus the tweakers, junkies and scared normal people queued up to do their recycling. I used to score when Id have a full pickup truck load of copper and aluminum A/C coils. Pain in the ass tweak work but worth it. Got burned by some of the sketchier places but found this Russian guy who had scruples and weighed it properly. Averaged about $800.
Tons of it. Hard to get to without cops pulling you over.
Surfing ain’t long-hairs and doobie-suckers no more. Surfing is suited-and-booted stockbrokers. It’s university students who’ve smelt the roses and don’t swallow the evening news. It’s just-18-year-olds whose trunks end above the knee. Surfing is beavertails and logs and empowered women who ain’t adverse to a Brazilian cut, but it’s also 540s and double oops. Right now, surfing is goddamn hot and, most of all, inspired.
😂
You blind with dazzling prose. Do you write copy for a living?
he’d make a great dinner party guest….
Derek! Come on, you don’t recognize?!?
Surely you left a signed copy of your book ”A guide on tone and prose for young Surf writers on how to plagiarise D Reilly” on the front desk then you left STAB?
Needs an update.
I take surfing like i take life. As anti-depressive! I believe that surfers are in sore need of new standards which will release him from his confusion and place him once again in fruitful communion within the depths of despair
C’mon DR, if he wrote verbiage for a living he’d understand the distinction between averse and adverse. Stab without you on the other hand …
a ha ha ha ha ha ha fucken hell. Where would you start.
The New Zealand Herald should be right up there on the list.
the shitest of the shitest
Here’s probably as good as any.
Let’s ridicule assholes!
I’m fed up of this shit. Surfers in NZ need to band together against all these snitches, media and nonsense rules
Band together and make another Silly Billy petition?
A dangerous precedent has been set and I worry this isn’t gonna end with the lockdown. We need a voice to argue reason and for a bit of freedom and respect. Sounds cheesy I know
It’s a slippery slope!
snitches get stitches
He acknowledged in the really good interview that the police were fine – no animosity between him and them.
The scary thing is how nasty other surfers have been in NZ. If you stick your neck out a teensy bit, or if you question anything, you get fucken savaged.
Not our finest hour.
I wonder if its surfers who can’t walk to the beach who are doing this. “I live too far away from the beach so I’m going to ruin it for the locals”. Scary shit indeed
The Plan is the Plan! There is no Plan B. (So we all better toe the line, or else what have we got?)
Freedom and rational decision making?
That’s what I was hoping!
OK, surfing should probably be allowed if you can walk to the beach. But what’s your Plan B? Joining the rest of the world and having partial lock-downs until a vaccine is developed? They’re going to be in economic turmoil until then. This virus will keep going around and around as no-one has immunity
My comment was in relation to Ashley Bloomfield’s statement (he’s the Dir Gen of health) that eradication was the plan, and there was no plan b. That, I think, is painting ourselves into a corner, as it is impossible without perfect testing procedures (and they don’t exist). If your only goal is perfection, you’re bound to lose.
We should also plan for how to mitigate. To get the healthy back to work, while isolating the sick. For how to work as safely as possible.
I wasn’t meaning Ban the Torpedoes and let’s lick each other’s eyeballs.
Definitely some of that: better we’re all miserable.
On that note, I feel really sorry for people in Tairawhiti (Gisborne/East Cape area fyi). One known case, since recovered, yet they’re locked down with the rest of us. Would love to see them surfing, even if I can’t.
It’s been pumping too.
It’s fucked up how hard New Zealanders have lost their minds. You’re right about the surfers, guys I grew up with thinking they had a devil may care attitude, fuck the law etc. are now calling for police to arrest fellow surfers. I can’t believe half the shit I see. I’ve done a fair bit of head sticking outing and makes me feel like knocking some heads off at the end of it. Why is nobody questioning these rules?
I’ve wrecked friendships these two weeks, just by insisting on debate, on a Plan B. On an idea of how to exit the lockdown. It’s seen as dissent and heresy.
I grew up in Denmark, and you’re taught to question authority and to protest and to think. Can’t shut up, sorry.
I hear ya. I have genuinely lost faith in New Zealanders collectively. On a bright note in recent days I have noticed a little more noise on the dissent front. Even if we are wrong someone has to ask the question. Democracy is quickly being left behind I’m afraid.
I’ve deactivated my FB page over all this… just cant be fucked spending 4 weeks of my lockdown arguing online.
Says man arguing on a internet comment board.
It’s a good idea, but to quote our PM: “I miss people! I miss the interaction”
A bloody hate most people a lot of the time, but you gotta talk and chat and argue and smile and laugh. Good thing we have a tight little family bubble, and that I get to go to work and meet others, but still.
Jacinda should rename it spatial distancing not social distancing. A much kinder term.
It was quickly renamed physical distancing.
I’ve been working through the lockdown because people need water in their homes and, damn, they’ve wanted to talk my ear off. Completely desperate to interact with other humans in real life. I was happy to chat it up but I also wanted to get done, paid and out of there in addition to not make mistakes from being distracted.
FB is like a multi-personality disorder chatroom.
I bailed that shit after 2016 elections when everyone became an expert in politics. Total waste of time. No one is convincing anyone of anything or successfully persuading anyone to see things differently. Brings out the worst in people.
But surely Beachgrit is for the arguing connoisseur? Any idiot can start an argument in a Facebook thread.
That’s the problem these days, people lose sight of its just a discussion and start making it personal instead of looking at things from all perspectives. We all should absolutely question authority and government. It’s our duty.
Perfect example is Bill Gates becoming the “expert” on pandemics. He knows a great deal about it, is a very smart guy and maybe he has the answer but he isn’t a doctor or epidemiologist and he has some very blatant conflicts of interest regarding vaccines as well as some questionable activities in other parts of the world involving them. No one in the media is questioning him at all and people are appalled when its even mentioned online.
Sounds like NZ has become an eastern block police state over night and everyone’s gone all in.
The far left is worse than the far right these days
First Country to give Women the vote and by next week the first to publicly stone Surfers to death in the Town Square.
Haha, yes. The NZ paradox.
Derek, if you had to walk in the shoes of a cop for a night, you would understand. There’s only so many beaten wives, abused children, rape victims and dead bodies a normal human can deal with on a regular basis. Cut them a little slack bro.
So true
Cunt of a job
Done by cunts usually
We all have a calling
We are lucky, NZ cops are generally good to deal with. Maybe the fact they don’t have guns on them all the time means the power trip thing doesn’t come into play so much.
Cops are tops!!
Generally..
Then again
I dunno
Luck of the draw. I seem to get pulled over by the ones that were harassed and picked last for sports in high school. The cops I know personally or have done work for have all been really cool and have lots of good stories.
That police 10-7 show makes NZ cops seem super chill compared with Aussie bacon. They let more people off than they arrest!
Yeah, never had a good experience. Attracts the same sorta person as surf lifesaving.
this a volunteer position. same as the army. no one is patting you on the back for risking your life for 30k a year. cops never helped me with anything. fight for my freedoms? get fuct with your modern virtue.
You mind sorting out your Avatar name…
When was it ever called giving some one the fingers, unless it was ya mates sister?
Backwards cunts.
Looks like there will be a mandatory quarantine for anyone coming to NZ of 14 days.
In a govt approved and monitored hotel/facility.
NZ residents returning – everyone. No way round it.
Hossface expects this to continue for the foreseeable future.
I guess that’s pretty much killed all tourism in and out of NZ right there.
I’d expect most of the Pacific Islands to follow along with that as well.
Big changes coming everywhere.
That’s been the case in many countries, including Australia, for at least two weeks.
Yea, I know – here too.
But the change is that you can’t go home and self isolate.
You will go to one their facilities.
Ardern says that the government will pay for NZ residents at the moment – this may change.
Presumably any other nationality will have to pay the quarantine costs.
Yep that’s been the case in Australia for 15 days. Arrive in Australia and you are taken directly into isolation at a hotel courtesy of the government. (The first lot of quarantined got out yesterday.)
Sounds fun after a 20 hr plane ride!
Ah ok – wasnt aware of that.
Here, they let people returning go home and self isolate.
Tourists had to declare their plans and locations of self isolation.
40,000 have come home over the last two weeks and Adern admitted there wasn’t enough resource to administer that many. The numbers returning are down to 300 or so a day now. So that’s far more manageable.
There’s been no tourists arriving for yonks. It’s just been Kiwis arriving back
What’s the plan Australia and the world? NZ’s trying to eliminate the virus. You gonna keep cutting off the many heads of the Hydra for the next 18 months until a vaccine comes along?
Well I am not part of the planning group so what do I know, but it seems as if in Australia it’s thus:
– slow the infection rate enough so health authorities can get set (seems like that’s happening ok, maybe better than expected right now)
– don’t let the rate push higher than the longer term ability of the health network to treat the more serious cases (that’s going to go on for quite some time)
– carefully manage the winding back of restrictions so as not to let the cat too far out of the bag so to speak (that might begin in a month or two).
I think they see the vaccine as the thing that’ll put the cat in the bag forever, pretty much.
ummmm, air travel will be fucked for a long time yet. The airlines that do survive this crisis won’t be selling cut price flights anywhere, the people who manage to keep their jobs won’t be doing indo trips every year. We’ll be lucky if the pacific islands open up their borders to kiwis if it can be proven that neither country has any cases, that way, best case scenario the lucky few can get up to fiji or samoa for some warm water. All those guys that ticked up boats and utes in the past couple of years and have been driving around $200k set-ups will be shitting themselves when they are on the dole. There will be some good deals on trademe in a couple of months for those of us with cash.
Not the worst place to be stuck. Still, the thought of not leaving NZ for a long time scares the shit out of me.
I think they’ll throw deals, then make up the slack by charging outrageous prices on things like surfboards.
Air NZ is pretty cool with boards, Singapore is a dream, United and American are FUCKED.
”Was” pretty good… We’ll see what next year brings.
One thing I don’t enjoy about Air NZ…. I know you are curious.
The waitresses act like school marms… always passing along advice. Suffocating and don’t fucking wake me up to feed me, we just boarded and it’s midnight our time.
The male waitresses then ply everyone with wine, like fucking sommolier’s pimping Marlborough region light reds??? They’re always surprised that I don’t drink on flights and I’ve come to know a few pretty well… gone out to dinner in Auck.
Then the customs is constantly under construction for 15 years it seems although departure terminals have improved.
Your health minister busted for disobeying his own directions?
Scotland health lady also busted coming and going from their chic holiday homes.
What a fuckwit.
Social media
Connecting people with bullshit
Making the world a paranoid wrongly informed place.
Thanks a lot Zuck.
Drop a bomb on Palo Alto.!!
Nah but yeah.
(Having succumbed to some paranoia myself, the past two weeks)
Poor guy. On closer look hes definitely flipping off someone other than popo. Can’t trust the media anywhere! Bigger bummer is all the virtue signal assholes