Taupō police report: 'Theft from vehicles, motorbikes hooning and drunken idiots fighting'

Taupō police have been kept busy during the summer holiday period. Photo / NZME

Comment:

Tena koutou katoa me te tau hou. Happy New Year to you all, bearing in mind that we're 18 days into 2022.

A lot has been happening in the Taupō and Tūrangi areas with our teams policing the community to keep you safe, but also responding to 111 calls.

Most of our work still consists of family harm, assisting mental health and intoxicated people fighting, but we have, however, had some crime trends over the holiday period.

These include thefts from motor vehicles, motorbikes hooning around on reserves and drunken idiots fighting. Now that we're transitioning from the holiday period back to normal life, we will be making a conservative effort at addressing all three of these categories.

It is disappointing to see the level of intoxication on Tūwharetoa St and the surrounding suburbs on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Over the summer period we did roster extra staff to work some of these times with the aim to reduce intoxication in these areas.

Sergeant Chris Turnbull is doing excellent work with our licensed premises and he will continue to do this, but we all have a part to play in ensuring that we drink responsibly and that our mates who we are drinking with get home safely.

Please look after each other when out on the booze, especially during this warmer weather.

Because of the slight increase of theft from cars, police have scheduled prevention and reassurance patrols in these volume crime areas. The Tactical Crime Unit and Taupō Youth & Community Services are also contributing to decreasing this type of crime. If you see anything suspicious in your neighbourhood, please call 111 so that police can come and talk to these people.

I am aware Taupō area road policing manager Vanessa Meharry has previously spoken about motorbikes on reserves, but I want to take the opportunity to bring this to the front of mind again.

I acknowledge this is a huge problem down in Tūrangi and as a collective policing area we will be addressing this problem over the next few months. We also have the same problem in Taupō, mainly in the Richmond Heights area.

What can we do as a community? It is no secret that the New Zealand Police changed their pursuit policy 18 months ago therefore we will no longer pursue vehicles that flee from us, but what we can do is canvass the area and obtain photos and CCTV footage of these individuals or groups, identify the riders and then go and confiscate their bikes.

What you can do as a community in both Taupō and Tūrangi to assist police is when this behaviour is happening, pull out that phone, hit record, then report it online, uploading the footage.

If you think that someone is in immediate danger of being seriously hurt or killed, 111 requesting for police is the correct course of action. The riders of these dirt bikes are young kids and teenagers. If you are an owner of one of these bikes, make sure it is being operated responsibly.

Until next week, take care.

- Senior Sergeant Phil Edwards is the Taupō police area response manager.