A gang of Christchurch boy racers is still being hunted after an "orchestrated ambush" on a lone police officer on Friday night.
Sergeant Nigel Armstrong was responding to boy racer calls in suburban Wigram when he was surrounded by about 300 boy racers armed with bottles and a
slug gun.
Mr Armstrong said the drivers had been listening to police scanners and were waiting, blocking his retreat.
"Initially bottles started getting thrown, and then I was fired upon by a slug rifle, or air rifle - three pellets struck my driver's side window, and about five seconds later the first bottle went through the window."
He escaped, but another police car had a bottle thrown through the rear windscreen.
"When the window was broken, they were communicating to other offenders down the road that they had broken the window and to start aiming at me."
Christchurch Area Commander Malcolm Johnston said he was angry about the crowd's behaviour.
"These aren't boy racers, these are thugs," he told Radio New Zealand.
"They are criminals, and they were screaming out `kill the pig, box him in', they were targeting the sergeant who was on his own.
"Quite clearly, whether they had police scanners, they knew that there was only one car coming at that stage. The whole thing was an orchestrated ambush."
Mr Johnston said the group had armed themselves with weapons before the officer arrived and something had to be done about the escalating problem in the city.
Boy racers in Canterbury received almost half of all tickets handed out nationally by police for noisy vehicles last year, and Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker has called on the Government to tell Christchurch residents what it would do to solve the problem.
In retaliation for his stance, boy racers have been gathering outside Mr Parker's home with police having to move them on.
Transport Minister Steven Joyce has promised to visit the city in the next six weeks to see scale of the problem.
He said he would also talk to Police Minister Judith Collins on whether current laws gave police enough power to act against boy racers.
- NZPA
