South Taranaki councillor ‘disgusted’ at behaviour of ‘hostile’ group at car meet

Police officers retreated after their car was surrounded by what they describe as a "hostile" group of people at a car meet in Taranaki. Photo / YouTube

By Robin Martin of RNZ

A South Taranaki District councillor says she’s “disgusted” at the behaviour of a “hostile” group of people who forced a police patrol into retreat during an incident in Ōaonui the early hours of Saturday morning.

A video posted on YouTube shows about a dozen people approaching the police car in Ōaonui, which then reversed, with people running after it.

Coastal ward councillor Janet Fleming, who lived at nearby Pihama, said this kind of behaviour had no place in South Taranaki.

“I’m pretty disgusted that these young people have chosen to do this and the fact that they intimidated the police officer who felt threatened. Action needs to be taken and I trust that those people will be held accountable.

“I just think this is something that doesn’t belong on the [Taranaki] coast or anywhere, to be fair, especially when lives are endangered.”

Police attended a report of antisocial road users gathering at Kina Rd about 1am on Monday.

Officers spoke to some of the people but found them confrontational, police said.

“Due to the hostile nature of the group, it was determined that the safest course of action was to monitor the meet from nearby and gather information.”

Fleming was unsure if it was a sole officer involved but said police did a great job with the resources they had.

“We’d always like to have more police officers, yes, but you know they need to have a life as well, so... yeah we’d always like to see more officers in small rural settlements.”

The councillor didn’t think gatherings of antisocial car users were a common occurrence in South Taranaki and she was unsure where the young people had come from.

“That’s not the sort of area that’s conducive for a big crowd of cars together, I don’t think, and [they are] certainly not welcomed by the locals.

“I don’t know how their minds work. They must have a bit of money to have these cars and fill them with fuel to be able to basically just burn up money. I would suggest that money would be better spent in other places.”

Police said they would use the information they gathered for follow-up inquiries.