Property damage to personal, public and business premises is on the rise in Raumati, Paraparaumu and Waikanae areas. The reported type of damage includes tagging, letter box destruction, pelting stones and lemons at dwelling houses and general destruction of other personal and public property.
Police are working towards resolving a considerable amount of tagging located in and around the Paraparaumu area including Kāpiti Lights, Coastlands and Kāpiti Primary School.
On Friday about 12.30am while Police were doing a foot patrol through the Kāpiti Lights Coastlands area three potential offenders preparing to tag decamped from Police on foot. One was located immediately. A second was located after a lengthy and protracted foot chase finishing at about 1.00am.
As a result Police can now relate and link certain tags to specific offenders for tagging to a Primary School, Coastlands area including the Kāpiti lights complex, a business premise, and a vehicle located on the Eastern side of the railway tracks.
Enquiries are ongoing. One juvenile suspect is currently in a residential Youth Facility elsewhere. Enquiries with this Youth are ongoing. Two other offenders are due to paint out their tags over a number of Saturdays.
Police can appreciate the total frustration felt by the community in relation to the increase in vandalism and are doing everything possible to resolve this ever increasing issue.
During a recent interview with a well known tagger, he revealed to Police three reasons why he continued to revisit the same area to tag:
1.Inadequate street lighting
2.No CCTV, or if there was they knew it was not monitored at night
3.That his tag was able to remain on that premise for sometime before it was painted over.
Police have also found supporting documentary evidence of tagging on books, miscellaneous paper, on clothing and bags that link offender to their tags found on buildings.
Kāpiti Police would welcome any support from the community in combating and proactively preventing future offences.
As a parent or caregiver if you find your teenager in possession of bold thick marker pens or spray cans without explanation check if they are tagging any of the aforesaid property in their possession. Please feel free to call the Youth Aid Police Officers Peter Swann, Allan Hallberg or Linda Burak to discuss.
If you are a member of the public who wishes to report suspects anonymously consider calling Crime Stoppers on 0800555111. Alternatively visit their website www.crimestopper-nz.org. You can report electronically, your IP address remains anonymous. Please feel free to report crimes and suspects to the Kāpiti Police station.
If any crime is in progress including property damage please do not hesitate calling 111 and explain to the Police communicator the offence is in progress.
Police need the local communities and Police to work together to resolve this situation. This is a local community issue and the Police alone working independently will not stop this.
In the near future Police will like to facilitate a Community Meeting to consult with our community to come up with strategies to overcome this increase in property damage.
Some concepts to consider will be communities who own a street or area and actively eradicating tagging when it appears. Increasing the Community Patrol numbers with a active focus on property destruction. Increasing the number of Neighbourhood Support groups and increasing communications within the current and future groups focusing on discovering tagging and reporting suspects.
Finally Police would like to offer the following crime prevention advice. When considering the design of your garden that is accessible to the public consider the following.
Weed mat covered by stones, boulders and rocks although architecturally appealing is also accessible for those undesirable people who like to turn these boulders and rocks into missiles. Consider as an alternative bark, or plant the rock garden out with sharp succulents, including cacti plants, or rosebushes, or natives that include sharp flaxes and grasses.
Consider planting fruit trees to the rear of your property so the fruit can not be picked and once again be used as a missile to fire at your dwelling or surrounding neighbourhood properties.