You have to really wonder just what Waikato Police Area Commander, Superintendent Bruce Bird was thinking when he admitted that youth crime is “out of control”.
Police were allegedly fired at from a passing vehicle in the wake of youth arrests linked to a string of overnight ramraids and burglaries in the Waikato.
The region’s top cop says the four arrested – aged 15, 17, 18, and 19 – have gang connections.
“They are an organised crime group, pure and simple,” Waikato District Commander Superintendent Bruce Bird said.
And he had strong words for alleged offenders still on the run: ”Give up – we’re coming to get you”.
The arrested youths allegedly entered a house and stole a car from the shocked occupants in Gillard Road in the early hours of Monday, following a raid in Te Awamutu, and after their car caught fire.
The stolen car was eventually road-spiked to a halt and a police dog team caught the youths in the Bader St area of Hamilton, police said.
Scene guards at the property where the youths were arrested were reportedly shot at from a “light-coloured car”, police said.
Officers didn’t return fire because they weren’t armed at the time, Bird said, but all Waikato police staff had since been told to carry firearms.
At this stage there was no established link to the recent Irvine St Dairy robbery in Hamilton, in which a worker’s thumb and finger were cut off with a machete, he said.
But recent crimes show “these people are now out of control. Their violence is escalating”, he said.
That’s a real ‘No shit, Sherlock’ moment from Superintendent Bruce Bird.
But now he’s raised that very good point, it rather raises the question, whose fault is that, then?
This top cop has said out loud what many innocent people on the streets of our towns and cities have been saying for some time. Crime is out of control.
The first duty of any government is to protect its citizens. In this regard, the Labour Government, along with those given the powers to enforce the law and keep crime under control, have failed us.
If crime is out of control, that is wholly the fault of this Government and its Police force. Civilians are not allowed, and are constantly are told not to get involved.
But this top cop has now said what we already know, that crime is out of control, and the corollary of that is the Police and the soft-on-crime policy settings of this Government have lost control.
If the Police can’t or won’t protect civilians, then the next logical step is that those civilians, particularly those in vulnerable businesses, will start protecting themselves.
In the case of a violent robbery, ram raid or armed attack, when seconds count, the Police are minutes away. What are we to do? Run and hide like the Police?
Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars policing, harassing and demonising licenced firearms owners, how about deploying those funds to fighting actual criminals?
If Police are saying that crime is out of control, and they are, then perhaps it is time citizens were allowed to defend themselves with appropriate ‘castle doctrine’ legislation.
With the killing of a churchgoer and increasingly violent crimes against people, it won’t be too far off when a shopkeeper justifiably shoots and kills an armed offender. You may be sure that the Police will then focus on persecuting that shopkeeper with the full force of the law if that happens.
The problem the Police will have though is there won’t be a jury in the nation who would convict that shopkeeper, especially if the defence lawyer calls Superintendent Bruce Bird to the stand to testify that crime is “now out of control”.
It’s only a matter of time now. The criminals obviously don’t care about the Police, and the majority of the population has lost confidence in the Police as well.
The rampant crime wave is on this Government and the ineffectual Police.
I asked ChatGPT to provide some advice for Superintendent Bruce Bird:
Explain in words a four year old can understand that it is the job of police to stop criminals, not put their hands up in surrender
Sure, here is an explanation that a four year old might be able to understand:
The police are people who help keep everyone safe. They wear special clothes and drive around in cars with flashing lights. They are really good at catching bad guys who do things that hurt other people or break the rules. Sometimes, the bad guys try to run away or fight the police, but the police are brave and strong, and they are trained to stop the bad guys and make sure they don’t hurt anyone else. The police are there to protect us and keep us safe, and we can always count on them to do their best to catch the bad guys.
ChatGPT
Hope that clears up any misunderstanding.
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