Lawyer for family of Alo Ngata says IPCA report makes disturbing reading:

Alo Ngata and his family

"I can't breathe".

Like Nicholas Harris and so many others, Alo Ngata was choked to death by 'law enforcement authorities'. While other 'law enforcement authorities', administrators of justice and governance, uphold it and excuse it.

The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) today released its report identifying multiple failures by the officers who restrained Ngata, who was on meth when arrested for assaulting an elderly man in Auckland's Freeman's Bay in 2018.

Resources are not being effectively allocated, and too many police are involved with a disproportionate number of police officers have been convicted of using and dealing methamphetamine, but it's the tip of a much bigger iceberg, and a much bigger problem. 
 
People like Alo Ngata are collateral damage in the 'war against drugs' - damaged by drugs and drink, mental illness or the stigma of being labelled with mental illness, alienated and marginalised by society, failure of the education system, and a racist system of governance.

A highly disproportionate number of our Mauri and Pasifika people are arrested, injured, shot, choked, killed or died of criminal negligence in custody. The investigative and disciplinary processes are inadequate and biased.

Officers said he was struggling and resisting as they carried him to the cell, but CCTV shows that he was motionless, and apparently unconscious.

Police launched their own investigation into the incident, which determined that legal causation for Ngata's death was not established and on that basis no one was criminally culpable.

Police spin doctor public relations expert Karen Malthus said the conduct of the employees involved in the incident was assessed and it was considered that there was no behaviour that required an employment investigation.

Karen Malthus, NZ Police spokesperson

"Police emphasise the fact the pathologist was unable to determine whether the use of a spit-hood in this case had any causal effect on Mr Ngata's death," Malthus said.

"The report also noted the pathologist's finding that removing the spit hood might not have changed the outcome."

The NZ police operational manuals state clearly in regard to OC spray, the use of the spit hoods, and many other operational rules that were ignored or breached.

Alo Ngata's death will be the subject of a Coroner's inquest, and will no doubt join the growing list questionable reports such as the one into the death of Stephen Dudley and many others alleged ruled  to have other contributing factors such as 'undiagnosed heart conditions', etc.

Lawyer Marie Dyhrberg, who was acting for Ngata's family, said the report made for disturbing reading.

"I have also read the response of the police and I do have concerns about that response. It would appear that there is a failure to acknowledge the degree and the depth of the police failings during the course of Alo being in police custody," she said.

Ngata's death will also be the subject of a Coroner's inquest.