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Weekend of drunken mayhem: 1000 calls to police
Monday, 15 December 2008
Drunkenmayhem sparked more than 1000 calls to Wellington police over the weekend 650 to the police communications centre and 414 triple-one calls.
Most of them related to booze-fuelled fights, disorder, domestic disputes and driving complaints.
"It is a high number, but not unusually high for this time of year in summer people tend to go out in the good weather, start drinking early and carry on right through the night," Mr Darroch said.
Inspector Steve Darroch said Wellington police were flat out dealing with alcohol-related incidents from Saturday afternoon, when people headed out to enjoy the good weather and kept drinking through the night.
Wellington police were busy yesterday processing 22 intoxicated people who had been held in cells overnight. . It accounts for 70 per cent of emergency hospital admissions, kills nearly three people a day and accounts for well over half of all crime.
The weekend binge underlined concerns at the growing booze toll, as reported in The on Saturday.
Wellington Hospital chief medical officer and drug and alcohol specialist Geoff Robinson said New Zealand needed to face up to its alcohol problem, which killed about 1000 people a year.
Every weekend, booze sends 84 people on average to Wellington Hospital either injured or seriously intoxicated.
Hot spots for drunken disorder on the weekend were Courtenay Place and Taranaki St, especially in the vicinity of nightclubs, Sergeant Corey Watts said.
Doctors and counsellors have called for a big rise in beer and wine prices, cuts in the number of outlets, bans on television advertising, raising the legal drinking age and more funding for treatment programmes.
Courtenay Place Expressoholic employee Alan Hunt said drunken tomfoolery was prevalent in Courtenay Place every Friday and Saturday night.
"Saturday is always a busy night, but more people were locked up than usual this weekend probably reflecting the time of year," Mr Watts said.
Neighbouring cafe owner Thanasis De Winter believed the drunkenness and violence on the streets on Saturday night was about normal levels, but he noticed a stronger police presence and more people being arrested throughout the evening and continuing well into Sunday morning.
"People are generally pretty good till about 10pm, then from about 3am fights start and there are girls screaming," Mr Hunt said.
Porirua police arrested eight drunken men the same night on a variety of charges, including assault and breaching bail conditions.
"Police were pretty tough arresting people with alcohol," Mr De Winter said.
. Earlier this month, more than 1000 drivers were breath-tested in booze-bus operations in Otaki and Levin, but only nine were found to be over the limit
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Families to return without ‘lost men’
The Monday, 08 December 2008
Familyand friends of New Zealanders killed in the A320 Airbus crash are returning from France without the bodies.
Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe said yesterday that French authorities had said identification of the first two bodies recovered from the sea was unlikely till sometime next week. It would then take some days for the bodies to be released by authorities.
During the weekend, divers found a fourth body near the wreckage of the Airbus, which crashed into the Mediterranean Sea near Perpignan on November 28, killing all seven on board.
Other remains may not be able to be identified and returned to families till later, Mr Fyfe said.
The two German pilots on the plane have not been named.
The five New Zealanders who died were senior pilot Captain Brian Horrell, 52, engineers Murray White, 37, Michael Gyles, 49, Noel Marsh, 35, and Civil Aviation Authority inspector Jeremy Cook, 58. .
"Over the past couple of days it became clear to us all that the opportunity to bring our lost men home may be some time off as the French authorities continue with the painstaking recovery and body identification tasks.
"So the 21 family and friends here in Perpignan have decided to return home to reunite with their loved ones and await advice from the identification process.
"It has been an incredibly moving time for the families and the Air New Zealand support team," Mr Fyfe said."
Mr Fyfe said many of the families had spent the past few days visiting the workplace and hotels in which the men were based in Perpignan, meeting their friends and colleagues, as well as seeing some of the sights they had heard about from their loved ones. Mr Fyfe was to return to New Zealand today.
Senior airline staff, technical specialists and two New Zealand police representatives were remaining in Perpignan to help the French authorities.
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Winds fan Raglan blaze
By REBECCA HARPER – Saturday, 08 November 2008
MARK TAYLOR/
HOT STUFF: Firefighters battle a scrub fire at Ngarunui Beach close to Raglan last night. .45pm and spread about one kilometre back towards the town as firefighters worked to stop it.
The fire, burning in toe toe and grass on an embankment above the beach, began about 4.
Northern fire communications shift manager Jaron Phillips said more than half a hectare of steep, almost cliff-like, terrain was on fire.
The fire did not threaten any buildings but efforts to control it were hampered by a combination of strong winds early in the evening, the steep terrain and gorse.
"The wind is not helping us at all," Mr Berryman said.
Hamilton deputy fire chief Martin Berryman said firefighters brought in from around the region had worked to control the fire that was closest to the surf club but it had spread back towards Raglan in the other direction, fanned by 30 knot winds.
The vehicles were parked in the Wainui reserve, closing vehicle access while they drew water from a close toby stream.
Raglan firefighters had the support of nine appliances and tankers and their crews brought in from the central Hamilton, Pukete, Te Akau, Ngaruawahia, Te Awamutu and Pirongia stations.
Mr Berryman said it was too early to say what might have caused the fire.
A helicopter with a monsoon bucket was drafted in from Thames last night to help bring the fire under control.
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Court rules beating footage should be seen
Monday, 29 September 2008
The Auckland High Court has ordered that a videotape of a prisoner being beaten and pepper-sprayed in a police cell should be seen by the public.
More than eight hours of footage was filmed at the Whakatane police station where Rawiri Falwasser, 20, was badly injured while in custody on Labour Day in 2006.
The policemen convinced the trial judge to prevent television stations from showing those images to the public.
In June the closed-circuit television tapes of the incident were played to a Tauranga District Court jury that acquitted Sergeant Keith Parsons, 51, Sergeant Earle Busby, 46, Senior Constable Bruce Laing, 53, and Constable John Mills, 39, of nine charges of assaulting Mr Falwasser.
Both broadcasters showed footage from the tapes today and TV3 reported that the High Court decreed the trial decision not to release the tapes was "wrong in every way".
TVNZ and TV3 sought the release of the tapes because not releasing the them would "inevitably lead to a view that the jury got it wrong and lead to public questioning of the verdict".
He is bashed in the head with a baton, leaving him bleeding.
It said the perspex walls of Mr Falwasser's cell at the Whakatane police station gave a clear view of what happened to him.
The tape also shows Mr Falwasser being sprayed repeatedly with pepper spray through vents in the cell, at one point he tries to block the vents with clothing and at another he drops to the ground.
Police said they were using reasonable force, Mr Falwasser said he feared for his life.
But Police Association president Greg O'Connor said the public would only get half the story.
M r Falwasser's mother said despite the verdict she was pleased the tape had finally been made public.
Mr O'Connor said the release would result in trial by media.
"The problem is there's no sound on the tape so the public will not hear the entreaties, they will not be told that Mr Falwasser's brother, that a medical professional, that a mental health professional, had attempted to obtain his co-operation before this happened," Mr O'Connor said. However, seen segmented and edited it will be the enemy, not only of the officers but of police and the justice system in New Zealand.
"These officers thought the video was their friend in this situation, and it was — when seen in its entirety.
Crown prosecutor Fletcher Pilditch earlier told the court the public interest in the case was wider than just the verdict: "It related to how a person was treated in custody."
But the High Court today ruled the reputation and rights of police officers were outweighed by the public's right to see the evidence that led a jury to acquit them."