Police focus on stopping aggravated robberies

I’ve mentioned before that aggravated robberies to retail premises are a focus for us at present as this time of year has been identified by our intelligence people as a higher than normal risk for this offending, and recent crimes within Franklin are showing this to be correct.

An aggravated robbery is an offence where property is obtained by violence or threats, so it is quite broad.

On Monday night at around 11pm the Lochview dairy in Pukekohe was robbed by three men carrying knifes and a hammer.

A couple of weeks ago the Caltex at Karaka was robbed in similar circumstances.

If you do see a robbery in any form in progress we do recommend you don’t put yourself at risk.

However, at the least you can still note a description, direction of travel, vehicle details etc.

Also the offenders will usually prepare themselves outside maybe out of direct view around the back by putting on clothing that covers their face like a balaclava or pulling up a hoodie.

If you see anything like this phone 111, maybe even make it known that you’ve seen them so we can prevent it happening in the first place, but only if it doesn’t put you at risk.

In Pukekohe our staff have been assigned to visit at-risk shops to regularly visit and offer prevention advice to the owner.

Prevention advice to prevent aggravated robberies includes removing window signs so people outside can see in. It might seem trivial but an offender will not want to risk someone walking past seeing a robbery in progress and intervening.

Other advice is getting quality CCTV. Not only does good CCTV increase our chances of catching the offender but it is a deterrent if they know it’s recording and capturing them.

Even if they cover their face, a shot of clothing and body size can still enable us to identify them.

Also many times during a struggle or when running out the facial covering falls away exposing their face

We do have a good success rate and catch most aggravated robbers, either at the time by a police dog tracking them or a police car seeing them as they run or drive off or maybe later through the CCTV or forensics or witnesses recording a registration for example.

Plus many offenders will repeat the crime and eventu- ally get caught.

We then backtrack through historic robberies and are able to identify them for that also.

I’m pleased to say that compared to other areas in Auckland, Franklin has very few such robberies.

If anyone has any information about the robbery at the Lochview dairy, please contact us.

Secondly, traffic crashes have increased in conjunction with the wet weather, so many are the result of excess speed on wet roads when cornering. Please slow down. In the wet, everything changes. Don’t let a crash be the way you learn to slow down.

I’d rather our staff be out working on other matters than standing in the rain for a couple of hours investigating a crash.