So a NZ copper has become an internet sensation by offering a bit of home-spun advice to a suspect:
About 75,000 people have watched on YouTube Auckland policeman Guy Baldwin as he talks to a young man who police suspect had been breaking into homes. When the offender claimed he was just on his way to a service station to buy a pie, Sergeant Baldwin replied: "Three o'clock in the morning, that pie has probably been in the warming drawer for about 12 hours."
"It will be thermo-nuclear - always blow on the pie. Safer communities together," he said.
The phrase 'always blow on the pie' is now apparently appearing on T-shirts, but what really makes the joke is that Baldwin follows that bit of advice by repeating, completely deadpan, the NZ police force's vision statement: Safer communities together.
It's so refreshing to see these ridiculous corporate mottos subverted. I hope staff at the Australian Federal Police take heart, and find the courage to do what needs to be done to the nauseating and faintly Orwellian slogan, 'To fight crime together and win.'
