Michelle, we're proud of you

Holding a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle, former Whanganui High School student, Constable Michelle Evans donned a black scarf on her head and a rose on her chest. The young police officer stood guard outside the Christchurch Memorial Park Cemetery on Friday, a week after the mosque shootings.
Photo / AP

A Whanganui policewoman has become the global poster child for NZ’s solidarity with its Muslim citizens in the wake of the terror attack on two Christchurch mosques. This powerful Associated Press image of police officer Michelle Evans (former WHS student) standing guard with a rose and a hijab, has been shared widely.

It came as New Zealanders around the country donned headscarves and bright scarves as they observed two minutes’ silence in honour of the 50 people who were shot dead at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques.

Associated Press photographer Vincent Yu’s powerful image of the Whanganui woman has been shared widely, with many saying it was indicative of the feeling many Kiwis had toward the Muslim community.

Comments included: “This is incredibly moving. Respect.”

Evans, a former WHS student, was a new police recruit in 2016 and told the Whanganui Chronicle she was passionate about helping people.

“I wanted to work with the community that I was brought up in, really, and just help people. It’s a satisfying job knowing that you’re going out there and that’s what you’re getting paid to do, is help people.”

She spoke about attending jobs and calming people down at the scene.

“When you first go out there, they might be wound up, angry, but when I think they see the police arrive they kind of calm down. They know that we’re going to have to solve the situation. We’re not going to leave until we know everybody’s safe."

“I like going to jobs, and the best part is probably going there and people are in a situation where they don’t know how to deal with it, or they need someone outside of what’s happening to look at a situation and give them a good pathway to go down, and at the end of it they thank you for it.”

“I find that I can quite easily talk to youth, and they’re happy to talk to me. I don’t know if it’s maybe because I’m younger . . . it’s easy for me to relate or know where they’re coming from.”

And she had a message for people she may find herself working with:

“The police have to work with the community. We’re here to work with them and make Whanganui a safer place and make them feel safe. We can’t do it by ourselves. We need them to work with us.”

Whanganui Chronicle 25/3/19