Taupo’s crime free day
Police are praising the community after vigilance led to a rare burglary free day last week.
There has been a general decrease in burglaries in Taupo in recent times with only five reported for the first half of this week. There were 11 last week and 15 the week before.
At the time of printing police had received only five burglary reports for the week, a decrease from 11 the previous week and 15 a fortnight ago.
After the crime spike last week sergeant Phillip Edwards increased patrols to problem areas and made an appeal for the public to report all suspicious behaviour to police.
‘‘We had a big increase in the number of phone calls to police reporting suspicious cars and people,’’ he said.
‘‘This made things a lot easier for patrols in the area.’’
Patrols stopped more than 50 cars during their shifts and made random checks on people walking in the area or on bikes.
‘‘It is still the early stages but that is a very good trend so far,’’ Edwards said.
‘‘In a 24-hour period last week we had no reported burglaries or thefts from cars.’’
Edwards said reports of suspicious behaviour are valuable to police and the community should be thanked for being vigilant and taking the time to call in whenever they spot something unusual.
‘‘Most people can tell if something looks a bit odd,’’ he said.
‘‘Suspicious people and vehicle reports are like gold to us.
‘‘People need to be aware that it is making an impact in town.’’
As a result of the increased calls police say they have made one arrest, and expect to make more shortly.
‘‘We had one person arrested for burglary charges,’’ Edwards said.
While burglaries have been on the decrease police said there have been some worrying robberies in town over the last few weeks including ram raids and aggravated robberies on businesses.
Police are still looking for any information that could lead to the arrest of the occupants of a vehicle who ram raided Rebel Sport last week.
Anyone who has any information about the robbery, or wants to report suspicious behaviour is encouraged to contact Taupo Police on 07 378 6060 or CrimeStoppers on 0800 555111.