Ram-raid youths reoffend
Police say same groups carrying out multiple offences
Police believe the recent slew of ram raids and burglaries across Auckland are likely the result of groups of youths carrying out multiple offences.
Inspector Jim Wilson told the Herald most of the identified offenders are younger than 17, and police intelligence shows it’s “likely” they are involved in more than one incident.
It comes after a weekend of “mayhem” saw children as young as 11 driving stolen cars, leading police on wild goose chases across Auckland.
On Saturday a group of eight children broke into and stole two vehicles before driving from Takanini towards Waikato.
Two stolen vehicles were spotted exiting at the Te Kauwhata off-ramp where one was spiked by police.
While being monitored by the police Eagle helicopter, the child driving the stolen vehicle crashed into another car, seriously injuring the driver.
The chaos continued when a number of youths fled from the crashed car and jumped into the second stolen vehicle. They changed direction and headed back to Auckland on State Highway 1 towards Waitematā, and police attempted to spike the car.
The child driver avoided the spikes, and intentionally tried to drive into police, before doing a U-turn and trying to flee — at which point the vehicle was successfully spiked.
On Sunday, seven youths were arrested for attempting to steal vehicles from members of the public on State Highway 1 in Wellsford.
A member of the public observed a suspicious vehicle in Kaiwaka township
just before 1pm. It didn’t have any registration plates and was being driven at speeds in excess of the speed limit.
When the car changed direction and headed north again, road spikes were deployed near the northern end of Dome Forest. After hitting the spikes, the car came to a stop on SH1 in Wellsford, near Wayby Valley Rd.
A group of children then attempted to carjack members of the public waiting in a traffic queue but were arrested soon after.
In April, another group of children — again with an 11-year-old driver — ram-raided a shop in Sandringham.
Nine children fled in stolen
vehicles and were caught by police in Manurewa.
In recent weeks there have been several incidents of ram raids or theft across Auckland, including one where multiple vehicles drove through Ormiston shopping centre after hours.
Gas stations, dairies, high end clothing store and electronics stores have all been targeted by raids.
The owner of a clothing store which was targeted on Monday told the Herald business could not sustain such raids.
Vinod Ranchod’s store Big Broz in Panmure was smashed into by a car in the early hours, and thieves made
off with thousands of dollars’ worth of gear. While cleaning up the store yesterday, Ranchhod said that he did not feel safe after seeing the increase in ram raids in Auckland.
“You don’t feel secure anywhere ... it happens two or three times every day. How long can we put up with this? Financially we can’t because we’ve been through all the lockdowns. When you’re an owneroperator you lose out completely.”
Inspector Wilson said police would continue to hold offenders to account. “However, we need to continue working together as a community to help our young people find better life outcomes.”