A Palmerston North-based police officer's cheeky "response" to an online query has gained plenty of attention in social media.

The item, titled Beginner's Guide To Police Harassment and reportedly written by a Palmerston North sergeant, was posted on the Police Association's website.

It was supposedly in response to a question, which read: "I would like to know how it is possible for police officers to continually harass people and get away with it?"

The officer started back with: "First of all, let me tell you this ... it's not easy. In the Palmerston North and rural area we average one cop for every 505 people. Only about 60 per cent of those cops are on general duty (or what you might refer to as "general patrols") where we do most of our harassing."

The officer then went on to say "the rest are in non-harassing units that do not allow them contact with the day to day innocents".

It then goes into great detail about how much time police get to spend "harassing" and what tools were used to "narrow down those people we can realistically harass".

They include the phone, police car and laws.

"It is a really cool system that we have set up, and it works pretty well," the sergeant wrote.

The response endeed with: "Next time you are in Palmerston North, give me the old 'single finger wave'. That's another one of those codes. It means, 'You can harass me.' It's one of our favourites."

But, it appears the response was not the most original, with a Google search showing much of the wording had been used in similar circumstances in the United States.

 

- © Fairfax NZ News

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