Tūrangi Police are expecting a quieter than usual Labour Weekend. Photo / Dean Purcell NZ Herald
Tūrangi Police are expecting a quieter than usual Labour Weekend. Photo / Dean Purcell NZ Herald
Kia ora koutou. We have Labour Weekend coming up and with it there will be more people around our area, although probably not as many as we would normally expect on a long weekend.
We noticed the school holidays were quieter than usual in town without the Aucklanders and visitorsfrom Waikato around and fewer of our holiday houses around the lakeshore settlements being used.
What we also unfortunately noticed over the school holidays was that our family harm incidents went up which wasn't great, especially as a couple of these incidents were quite serious. These are mainly locals involved and our staff, including family harm officer Constable Sally Tai-Rakena and our support partners and agencies will be working together to bring these numbers back down.
In some family harm situations we noticed people haven't called us when they need help or have left it late to call. We need to remind people that you should call Police straight away if you see something or hear something so that we can get in there early and sort things out before the situation escalates. If you are in a family harm victim's circle of friends or family and things aren't going right, try to get some support agencies or partners around them. There are plenty of people they can speak to, we've just got to find the right ways for them.
Over the long weekend expect our police staff to be visible out on the roads and around our area. We are still running Operation Deterrence, focusing on restraints (seatbelts and car seats), impairments (drink, drugs, fatigue, medication), distraction (cellphones) and speed. All the locals are now familiar with the new speed limits between Taupō and Tūrangi so there is no excuse for speeding.
Sergeant Te Reipa Morunga, Tūrangi Police. Photo / File
In my last report I mentioned some burglaries that were being committed around the northern end of the town centre and which included a cafe, the bowling club and residential garages. A local man has been arrested and charged with burglary in connection with some of these and is now before the courts. The arrest came after information from our community, local police officers and some help from the Taupō Tactical Crime Unit.
Lastly, we have had two new staff members join Tūrangi Police recently, Blake Wilson from Thames and Michael Field from Queenstown. Both are young men who have moved here because they want to do small town policing and they and their partners are already getting involved in the community, joining Tūrangi LandSAR and Tūrangi Fire Brigade. Tau kē! We welcome them to our station and our area.
