NZ Police Address Use of Special Tactics Group in Kim DotCom Raid

By Jeralyn, Section Crime in the News
Posted on Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 02:57:44 PM EST
Tags: MegaUpload, Kim DotCom (all tags)

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Sledgehammers, motorized saws, assault weapons and more were used in the raid of MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom's compound. TV 3 in New Zealand has new details of the raid in an interview with a police official who attempts to justify the excessive force.

Seventy-six police officers, many armed with automatic weapons and pistols, including members of the elite Special Tactics Group, arrived at Kim Dotcom’s Coatesville property on January 20, to arrest him on charges relating to copyright offences.

In a related new article, Kim DotCom's security chief, Wayne Tempero, who took TV3 on a tour of the mansion, says:[More..]

Doors that weren’t even locked were being smashed open, there were police officers with sledge hammers and even a circular saw, and there were guns everywhere....The force was incredible. But had they simply asked us we would have opened the door to any room they wanted to enter.

There are two new videos accompanying the article: One is an interview with Assistant Police Commissioner Malcolm Burgess, who signed off on the Dotcom police operation. He confirms the participation of the highly specialized Special Forces Group in the raid. He justifies it based on "the intelligence" they had at the time and their concern for destruction of evidence. He says they were working with the FBI pursuant to a Mutual Assistance request the FBI had no involvement in the operational tactics used in the raid.

The second is of DotCom Security Chief Wayne Tempero walking a TV3 News reporter through the mansion, showing the damage and explaining what happened. It's long but well worth watching.

As for the guns, Tempero says, as he has before, the two shotguns were his, he purchased them with a license, they were inside the safe, and the safe door was closed with the keys inside it.

Even the police officer says there has never been a raid like this before in New Zealand. He says while 76 officers were involved in the raids, not all were at Kim DotCom's house (maybe just 20 or 30), the others were executing search warrants at other places. But his claims that their intelligence or the fear of destruction of evidence justified the over-the-top raid ring hollow.

As for Kim DotCom's assets, Tempero says there are no other accounts and Kim DotCom's wife and children are basically living off of "charity" from friends and supporters right now.

Update: See the new video interview with Printzboard, musicial director for Black Eyed Peas and friend of Kim DotCom. Printzboard was the director for the MegaUpload promotional video that resulted in the lawsuit against Universal. He discusses how the raid was over the top, and his conversations with Kim DotCom in jail. He says Kim DotCom is looking forward to coming to the U.S. to prove his innocence. He also says MegaUpload was good for artists. And he plays a song from the album Kim DotCom was making.

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NZ Police Address Use of Special Tactics Group in Kim DotCom Raid | 16 comments (16 topical)

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Maybe it's just me, but (5.00 / 1) (#1)
by Zorba on Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 04:08:17 PM EST

I think that the New Zealand police displayed just a wee bit of an over-reaction. (Yes, that was snark.) I mean, really. Was he accused of having a bunch of kidnapped children chained in his basement or something? Or harboring heavily-armed mercenaries who were ready to shoot the police on sight? Was this really necessary? What the he!! is going on with Western, supposedly democratic governments? (And I include ours.)

Why? (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by Militarytracy on Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 06:48:34 PM EST

Why did NZ do this in this manner? Why did they feel it was necessary? Should the whole world expect its doors kicked in at any hour these days?

: You remember (5.00 / 1) (#5)
by NYShooter on Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 09:08:03 PM EST

that old saying? "Work expands to the time allowed."
With cops, "Give'm toys, they gonna play."

: Apparently, MT (none / 0) (#3)
by Zorba on Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 07:03:40 PM EST

Yes. :-(

: to show the (none / 0) (#4)
by Jeralyn on Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 08:21:30 PM EST

US is serious about copyright crime.

I'm hoping to learn more information. (none / 0) (#6)
by EL seattle on Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 11:05:41 PM EST

Maybe this is in the video interviews, but I haven't seen a text account yet from the NZ media reports (or I could have missed it). But there are some details that I'd like to know about, and hopefully some in-depth reporting will soon start filling in the gaps.

1.) There were reportedly about 50 staff people at the mansion. What were their positions? Maybe 4 cooks, 5 maids, 4 nannies, 4 grounds staff, and 25... what? And how many rooms did this place have, anyway? If cops are trying to make an arrest and prevent the destruction of evidence at a large site where there are over 60 people, it might make sense to go in with more than just a handful of cops.

2.) How many of the cops were actually packing heavy weapons? Saying "many armed with automatic weapons" might not mean that all 76 cops were in full scale assault mode. Or even most of them. Or even a lot of them. Although Probably a lot of them were, but some might say that the word "many" is reported to be an allegedly vague word.

3.) How was this operation handled differently than if it had been, say, a (suspectedly) illegal internet gambling operation that was doing something like a billion dollars in business a year?

4.) According to one report: "A total of 10 search warrants were executed at residential and business addresses across Auckland." I wonder how many cops were involved in those events?

I think all your questions are (none / 0) (#7)
by Jeralyn on Wed Feb 08, 2012 at 12:25:30 AM EST

addressed and answered in the two video clips I linked to.


: Apparently no transcripts, yet. (none / 0) (#8)
by EL seattle on Wed Feb 08, 2012 at 02:42:50 AM EST

I think that one of the failures of the internet has been the way video has been embraced by news operations, but transcripts haven't.
It will be interesting to see what happens between Assistant Commissioner Burgess's statement that all of the armed police were wearing flak jackets that said "POLICE" right on the front of them, (at the 8:26 mark of the Burgess interview), and the statement by Wayne Tempero that the police didn't identify themselves at any time (around the 2:35 mark in the Tempero segment).
-
In the Tempero segment, they only seem to account for about 10 staff members and 5 family. Tempero mentions that since the raid, "all of the contractors, all of the staff, no one's gotten paid". Maybe some of the 50 people mentioned in some of the news reports were contractors? The mansion looks like it could have supported some office space, unless every room was part of the nanny/kid realm.
I'm still curious to see a rundown of how many people were at the mansion, what they all did there, and how many rooms the place actually has.
-
Most importantly, though - When did John Hurt start doing internet ad voiceovers for Mazda?

About the 70 + police officers (none / 0) (#9)
by EL seattle on Wed Feb 08, 2012 at 02:59:23 AM EST

According to the Assistant Commissioner in the NZ interview (that Jeralyn lined to), approx. 25 seconds into the interview -
...

"There were seventy-odd officers distributed across a number of properties executing up to ten search warrants during the course of the day-"

And the number of police involved in the raid on Kim Dotcom's property -

"The numbers vary. There were twenty or thirty, initially, to sieze the place. And thereafter there were a team of searchers that came through once we had control of the place."

Based on the video footage of the mansion that sort of starts the Terero tour, about twenty or thirty cops wouldn't seem like an excessive number for a raid of a site that large that wants to preserve possible evidence from being destroyed.

A raid by seventy-six cops, all with assault weapons and no identification, would be a different situation, for sure.

You'd think he was David Koresh... (none / 0) (#10)
by kdog on Wed Feb 08, 2012 at 10:49:54 AM EST

or something. Oh wait, that was authoritarian overkill too.

New World Order baby...their only tool is a hammer, and we're the nails.

Not even the same ballpark (none / 0) (#12)
by Yman on Wed Feb 08, 2012 at 02:15:51 PM EST

Unless Kim Dotcom was a cult leader with dozens of followers and stockpiles of automatic weapons in his house.


: I agree... (none / 0) (#13)
by kdog on Wed Feb 08, 2012 at 02:24:32 PM EST

The stormtroopers seem to think he was a Koresh. Just sayin' that was an example of overkill too, though it made more sense than this nonsense.
At least nobody died this time.

see the new interview (none / 0) (#11)
by Jeralyn on Wed Feb 08, 2012 at 02:10:51 PM EST

with Printzboard, musicial director for Black Eyed Peas and friend of Kim DotCom. He discusses how the raid was over the top, and his conversations with Kim DotCom in jail. He also says MegaUpload was good for artists.

Waiving extradition comment at 8:51 (none / 0) (#14)
by EL seattle on Wed Feb 08, 2012 at 04:53:33 PM EST

I don't think I've seen any mention of Dotcom's lawyers publicly mentioning this possibility yet. According to Printzboard, Dotcom "doesn't really need to be extradited. He's cool. He's like 'Let's go. Let's you know, let's get this thing started. Like why wait?'"

To me that sort of sounds like friends supporting friends, and I'd guess that Dotcom is following his lawyers' advice, even if he's personally champing at the bit to get things started. But maybe there are rumblings otherwise?

Also, I'm not a lawyer or anything... but I thought that this part of that same Pintzboard comment was sort of amusing:

"He's gonna go to the US, face the charges. Go there and say, 'Hey guys, I did nothing wrong. This is my company. This is the future. This is technology moving forward'. You didn't sue the the guy who did the Beta tape, or the blank CD or any of that stuff. He provides a platform and it's up to you how to use it."


amusing in what way? (none / 0) (#15)
by sj on Wed Feb 08, 2012 at 06:31:27 PM EST

: There was a lawsuit. (none / 0) (#16)
by EL seattle on Wed Feb 08, 2012 at 07:06:51 PM EST

And it was a big one. Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984) aka "The Betamax case" was the final result of the lawsuit that Hollywood studios brought against "the guy who did the Beta tape".
WIKIPEDIA ENTRY
That lawsuit eventually led to the Supreme Court's decision that it was a "fair use" for folks to make individual copies of TV shows for time-shifting puroposes. Sony won that lawsuit, but the Supreme Court was specific in its decision, that the case didn't help Napster or Grokster when they were successfully sued by the record companies.