What I want from the police and the mayor when people are being viciously attacked in the small hours of a weekend morning, and with a fellow journalist murdered going home from his night shift, is tough talk.

There are people who think a good night out means ruining someone else's life for fun, or for the meagre contents of a wallet. Sometimes they work in groups - as happened in Courtenay Place last weekend - and sometimes they're soloists, and all of them deserve to be pursued and punished. The cruel must be made to pay. I want to hear this from the authorities, not statements questioning whether the streets have really become unsafe when manifestly they have.

Continue reading Rosmary McLeod's column 'The cruel should have to pay for random violence' in the Dominion Post

Image: Kevin Stent/FairfaxNZ Stuff.co.nz

Rosemary McLeod is best know as an outspoken columnist, cartoonist and journalist. Her columns regularly appear in Fairfax Media publications.