Police: Henderson safer
An Auckland town centre where one of West Auckland’s fatal stabbings occurred is safer now, police say.
In 2014, Arun Kumar was stabbed to death inside his dairy shop in Railside Avenue in Henderson. Kumar’s death and other high profile incidents forced police to establish a neighborhood policing unit in 2015.
Henderson Neighbourhood Policing Teams Sergeant Dan Weir said the overall crime rate in the town centre has decreased by 20 per cent since they started.
‘‘There’s certainly a reduction in crime and you have to look at the statistics to get an idea. Some of our biggest wins have been specifically around reduction in shopl-ifting and public-based violence, like fighting in the street,’’ Weir said.
Weir admitted the town centre had earned a bad reputation for itself before 2015. Locals felt issues like shoplifting, aggressive begging and anti-social behaviour was preventing Henderson from reaching its full potential, he said. There was also the perception young people who gathered in the area were troublemakers.
Despite the decrease in crime rate, there were still crime trends that popped up but were not specific to Henderson, including synthetic drugs and drug use. There were also isolated incidents which often changed people’s perception of crime in the town centre, he said.