The normally quiet Northland town of Dargaville has been shaken by a series of ramraids and burglaries as well as two homicides in the area. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf
Concerns about a spike in crime and locals meting out vigilante justice when police are not available have prompted Dargaville residents to set up a community patrol group.
The Dargaville area has been hit by a wave of burglaries, ram raids and two homicides - a rarity in the usually quiet corner of Northland - in recent months.
The crimes come amid a shortage of police, which means officers often have to travel from Whangārei, almost an hour's drive away.
Northern Wairoa Community Patrol spokeswoman Anita Evans said recent events had alarmed the community, with the ensuing front-page news reports prompting Police Minister Mark Mitchell to hold a community meeting on Friday evening. About 200 people attended, Evans said.
"Recently we've had - for the first time ever - murders here in the surrounding areas of Dargaville, that's concerned a lot of people. Then we've had ram raids of our shops, and local residents in a state of fear because they've had break-ins or they've had vehicles stolen from inside their properties.
"We have people who are fearful and are now arming themselves, because they're aware the police are not here on duty."
Evans said in one instance, townsfolk delivering their own justice had left a suspect in hospital.
"The police weren't here and the locals actually figured out who were the locals [committing crimes], so we had vigilante justice - and I believe a young person ended up with a broken arm. They too have been arrested because they took matters into their own hands.
"That's another concern - we don't want people thinking they've got to have a baseball bat, or they've got arm themselves because of this element."
She said eight people had volunteered so far to join the community patrol group and were now going through the police vetting process. They would be able to patrol areas around Dargaville which were not covered by CCTV, such as Baylys Beach, Glinks Gully or Te Kōpuru.
"They can also do welfare checks - if an elderly person calls up and says, 'I think I've got something happening at my house,' they can go around and do a check. We're hopeful their presence will act as a deterrent."
The aftermath of ram raids in Dargaville. Photo: supplied by Northern Wairoa Community Patrols
Evans said a local business had "come to the rescue" by providing funding for an entire year.
The police minister's announcement at the meeting that police were seeking 18 new recruits for Northland was "wonderful news", she said.
Mitchell also said he wanted to see the current one-hour response time come down to 20 minutes, though that would require police to be based closer than Whangārei when the Dargaville station was unmanned.
Evans said Dargaville police covered a large area, from Pouto in the south - another hour's drive away - almost to Waipoua Forest in the north.
She was pleased Mitchell had made it to the meeting, given that he was also the minister of emergency management and had come straight from the Dunedin floods with just a couple of hours' sleep.
Ash Nayyar, a Dargaville ward councillor on the Kaipara District Council, said he had floated the idea of a community patrol a few years ago and was delighted it was now getting off the ground.
The patrols would not be an alternative to police, but would work alongside them. If anything, the patrols made a police presence in the town even more essential, because officers would have to respond if the volunteers saw a crime taking place.
"The last couple of months have been very bad here in terms of burglaries, ram raids and whatnot, and there has been some incidents of murder as well," Nayyar said.
"The minister talked about a model of different agencies working together, which he said had been successful in the Auckland CBD, but we need to have a physical presence."
Older residents in particular wanted to be able to walk into a police station and make a report rather than sending an email, Nayyar said.
Mitchell's office told RNZ the 18 new recruits would consist of 11 frontline community beat officers (four in the Far North, seven in the Whangārei-Kaipara police district) and seven officers for gang disruption units.
It was not yet known when they would start.