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Home / New Zealand

A 'few quiets' descend into chaos

By Patrice Dougan
APNZ·
7 Sep, 2014 12:44 AM5 mins to read

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A "few quiets" with friends ended with several fights, bottles and fence palings being thrown at police and a number of arrests as a Hamilton party spiralled out of control last night.

Callum Tilbury told the Herald he would be personally apologising to his Tawa St neighbours in Melville after a drinks session involving about 10 mates last night swelled to more than 500 mainly teenagers gatecrashing his get-together.

The unemployed 18-year-old, who was still drinking at 11am, said he had planned a few quiets with a few friends "but it kinda got on Facebook and the address kinda got online and people started getting crazier and crazier".

"There were so many people that it was crammed, it was just packed on the drive way."

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"There would have been about 500 people here, easy."

He said by 10pm police arrived and spoke with him to end the party.

They came back again at 10.30pm and by 11pm neighbours reported seeing cordons in place at roads entering in to Tawa St to stop further partygoers from getting to the out-of-control soiree.

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"I was cooperating and just made sure I talked with them to keep the party going, I told them to give me about 15 minutes to get everyone out and they only gave me about 10 and they just stormed in," said Mr Tillbury.

"All the roads were blocked off so we had to walk down to Mahoe St there was no other way to exit and then they had the riot squad chasing us down with batons and shields."

Neighbours reported returning to their homes and finding police cordons, broken glass and "teenagers everywhere".

At least 14 people were arrested in the disorder that followed.

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The owners of the house phoned police around 11pm asking for help in closing the party down, Senior Sergeant Andrew O'Reilly of Hamilton police said.

As the party-goers left, they began gathering on the street and started throwing bottles and other items at police.

Fights then broke out among the large group of mainly youth, Mr O'Reilly said, with more items thrown at officers.

"Police made a number of arrests for disorder," Mr O'Reilly said.

"There was no injuries to police."

"Further disorder jobs were received from the area over the next two hours as various parts of the dispersed groups caused issues in the local environs. Again alcohol played a large role in sheer quantity and the age of those drinking.

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"People who supply alcohol to teens commit offences and if proven will face the courts."

"This was one of those parties that unfortunately got out of control pretty quickly when there was no ability to control the number of people turning up and gate-crashing the party, really because, unwisely, the party was posted on Facebook and it went a bit viral," Senior Sergeant Peter Van De Wetering said.

"The attitude of many people turning up there was to make trouble, which happened reasonably quickly.

"By the time police were called "hordes" of drunken young people were in and around the property, and starting to get aggressive," he said.

"Unfortunately some of them ran really out of control and caused damage to a number of neighbouring residential properties, again minor damage but stuff that would upset homeowners and even frighten them for a while during the night while it was all happening," he said.

Officers were wearing protective riot gear, including shields.

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No officers were seriously injured, but some sustained minor cuts and bruises.

"Fortunately there was no serious injuries suffered by any of the people that were involved, given that during the overall clearing of that party and removing people and making the street safe again, we found a couple of weapons," Mr Van Der Wetering said.

"We found a decent sized knife, scissors.

"The weapons were found discarded in the street.

"This is a reminder to people who ant to host a party, which we all do, to be very careful in this day of social media, on how we extend those invitations because it's easy for rogue elements of society to get that information and then cause unnecessary trouble, like what happened last night," he said.

"The police would welcome anybody to notify us beforehand if they've got any concerns that an intended party could be the place where, because of Facebook or other social media, there's going to be a lot of people turn up. We'd rather know beforehand and put things in place to prevent this sort of disorder, than trying to clear it afterwards."

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One Tawa St resident said he heard "a lot of noise" and "yelling and screaming" during the party last night, before police officers in full riot gear arrived.

It was taking place at a property further up the street, which he couldn't see from his house, but could hear the noise the revellers were making.

"The riot police were here with their shields out," the man, who wished to remain anonymous, said.

"They all assembled down by my property and then they marched off up the road from there."

The police were out in force, he said, adding: "I've never seen so many."

"They seemed to clear it [the party] very quickly once they marched up there. They meant business that's for sure."

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