Gang Crackdown: Māori leaders push back on police tactics, rhetoric over Mongrel Mob raids
Iwi leader Willie Te Aho has slammed police tactics for the trauma left on children having to watch their parents arrested after orchestrated raids on Mongrel Mob homes in Auckland, Taupo, Wellington and Bay of Plenty resulted in 28 arrests and 99 drugs charges.
On Tuesday, October 22, police executed multiple search warrants across the North Island.
Māori community leaders Te Aho and Tame Iti attended a meeting in Ōpōtiki, the Eastern Bay of Plenty town, where locals outlined issues caused by the police raids where mokopuna were forced to watch as whānau were arrested by armed police.
During the Paddy Gower election debate last year, Luxon bragged about sending 500 armed police into Gang Tangi to rip patches off gang members as a tough symbolic gesture, the problem is that tough symbolic gesture will be met with an armed response by the gang members themselves because using tactics like this will only generate legitimate grievance form those being targeted.
National want to radicalise gangs into terrorist groups so they can expand their Police State powers. Luxon and Mark Mitchell are playing a dangerous game because their constant antagonism will create a blowback.
All you need is one trigger happy cop accidentally shooting a kid in a gang house and every Police Station on the East Coast will be a target for firebombing.
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Mitchell on the campaign trail said he would fall on his sword if he had not reduced crime in the first year .That year is up and so is crime .The time has come Mark time to go .Where is your honor man you have achieved nothing but are intent on creating kaos before you go .
In the governments eyes Opotiki is a small MAORI village so no one will care if we go to war there and destroy it just like Israel in Gaza.
Yes indeed.
We are heading down that track.
I think once Luxon caves into Seymour over Te Tiriti it will only be a matter of time before we have armed confrontation and it won’t just be the gangs. The rednecks have most of the guns in this country considerably more than the police.
The government can mouth off as much as it likes but it’s all hot air. It has no influence on police operations and tactics. There have been several reported cases, for example the arrest of a majority of Mongol mob members , that have been carried out professionally by the police without a resultant civil war.
Peter Yes, young Constable Matthew Hunt didn’t get shot and his grieving single mother lose her only son because he was trigger happy. And nor, that I recall, was his killer killed in retaliation by anybody.
But gangs are already terrorist groups. It’s their choice to terrorise, regardless of how or why they reached this point. It would be a dereliction of duty for the police to turn a blind eye to them because of some what-ifs.
Campaign comments by politicians have no influence on police procedures or specific operations. Iwi leaders should be aware of the damage drugs are doing in their communities and should be praising the way police are going about reducing harm in such a professional way. Multiple search warrants, 28 arrests, 99 charges and no one was injured, no kids were shot. Anyone doing on about kids being traumatized is just political bullshit.
No Peter not yet. Sooner or later this will happen.
Do you seriously believe that kids are not traumatised by this sort of police action.
gangs and vice are a symptom of a sick society. growing up in the 70’s and 80’s the Mob were eclipsed by extended whanau (who had jobs at the freezing works, forestry mills and construction/MOW and also the capital to fund vice) The Mob were seen as outcasts and weak loners – if the Mob turned up at the pub when certain people were drinking there, they would be moved on.
Affiliations have changed in recent decades, due to the Meth trade bringing in capital and the loss of jobs bringing in prospects, resulting in the mob now being more integrated amongst the wider community. They are not a biker club/gang like the Hells Angels who keep a low profile and stick to their “club” rules – the Mob are “the community” in which they live – good luck bashing the Mob out of “the community” in places like Opotiki – just because the patches are gone and a few people are in prison on vice charges means nothing – it will just harden the resolve of those communities for autonomy from a society they are mostly excluded from.
You know why Mitchell is adding fuel to a fire … right, to introduce private security firms once things get really out of hand…because the police ‘can’t cope’ with the hornets nest they are stirring up as we speak and Opotiki won’t take this bullshit lying down. But they have no power and it’s out of the way not in a big city where things would be too embarrassing if they got really out of hand.
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