Stolen police car recovered

A police officer has been left a little red faced after the officer's car was stolen while conducting a traffic stop in Whangamata last night.

The incident happen about 11.30pm. The officer had pulled a vehicle over for speeding and while the officer was talking to the driver, the passenger of the vehicle hopped into the patrol vehicle and driven off.

A SunLive reader says a number of road blocks where set up in the area but the patrol car was located by police about 3am in Opoutere.

Police said in a media statement all firearms were still secured in a locked box in the vehicle.

The taking of a police vehicle is a serious offence the statement says, and police are following lines of enquiry to locate the offender.

This is a rare and isolated incident which police will be investigating.

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7 comments

Embarrassing, but you have to ask..

Posted on 27-06-2016 01:21 | By morepork

I feel for the Officer concerned. But it bears out my previous posts about public confidence in the Police, and training where firearms are concerned. Can you trust somebody who doesn't even remove the keys from their vehicle when they leave it,(pretty fundamental to most of us),to be competent and capable when they have a gun in their hand? Humans make errors. The best way to minimize those errors is by proper training and exercises. I'm sure it is very unlikely that ANY police Officers will be leaving keys in their vehicles after this, so some good will come from it.


Ha ha

Posted on 27-06-2016 06:56 | By Tgaboy

The policeman referred to is the same one that said he was going to give us a "ticketiboo" about 1 week ago. Maybe he should stop thinking about cute things to say and focus on making sure he doesn't do dumb things like he get his car stolen. Ha ha.


Actually...

Posted on 27-06-2016 18:34 | By GreertonBoy

I feel sorry for the cop, no matter what 'cute' things he might have said.... the modern Police car has so much electrical stuff in it, the cars are better left running, or they have to shut down computers before restarting. It would be very difficult for police to be forced to shut down the vehicle every time they exit it... it would be equally embarrassing if an officer shut down the car and couldn't restart because of a flat battery... especially if the officer is called to a life and death situation and cant get there because of it. Unless a transmission lock can be fitted to police vehicles or a 'remote stop' from HQ for the odd time some idiot steals one. Unfortunately, We can not blame the officer for this at all and no amount of training or retraining of police can avoid this situation.


@Tgaboy

Posted on 27-06-2016 22:46 | By morepork

A good point about needing to keep the cars running. I hadn't thought of that and don't know if it is the case, but it could have a bearing on it.


Morepork

Posted on 28-06-2016 16:58 | By Kenworthlogger

They should leave their car running because if they end up in a shootout and shoot the offender dead some people will start looking for excuses as to why the police did not back off or move out the danger zone in a shootout. Would you like the officer to have to rummage thru their pockets trying to find the keys when some idiot with a Kalisnakov gos beserk?


@KenWL

Posted on 29-06-2016 14:02 | By morepork

The scenario you describe is not what happened here and, in such a scenario, it is far more likely the cop concerned would be scrabbling for his gun, rather than his car keys, so whether the motor is running or not, is irrelevant. Nevertheless, I do take Tgaboy's point.


Morepork

Posted on 30-06-2016 17:32 | By Kenworthlogger

There are lots of senarios here that would dictate leaving the car running. Like the classic pullover. Officer gets out and walks over to car and then car takes off. Much quicker to act if car is still running. May. The offender shoots at the officer like i described before but the officer is not armed. Oh now i have to find the keys and start the car to get out of danger. Food for thought....?


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