Long ear of the law

A smoke signaller emails us from New Zealand: “Hi, I spotted this on [social networking site] Twitter under ‘This is why New Zealand police need to recruit more people with an understanding of different languages and cultures’.” The Twitter post provided a link to the original posting (see image) and discussion on the equally powerful social networking site Facebook, where there was lively discussion on the topic and plenty of thumbs up. Some making comments doubted the existence of a language called Cook Islands Maori and a number of Cook Islanders jumped in to set the record straight. If the original Facebook posting is genuine, the police callout in New Zealand was unfortunately for a case of domestic violence in a Cook Islands family.

A smoke signaller emails us from New Zealand: “Hi, I spotted this on [social networking site] Twitter under ‘This is why New Zealand police need to recruit more people with an understanding of different languages and cultures’.” The Twitter post provided a link to the original posting (see image) and discussion on the equally powerful social networking site Facebook, where there was lively discussion on the topic and plenty of thumbs up. Some making comments doubted the existence of a language called Cook Islands Maori and a number of Cook Islanders jumped in to set the record straight. If the original Facebook posting is genuine, the police callout in New Zealand was unfortunately for a case of domestic violence in a Cook Islands family.