escapetonz
 

whats happening up your way then? You been doing dougnuts?

Massive police operation under way near Tauranga | Stuff.co.nz

Re: escapetonz
 

Ha Ha nah just police overkill.
They got wind of a mass group of patched up bikers coming to the Bay for the unveiling of a new memorial so took the opportunity to set up the booze bus and enough officers to check for current rego and wof's etc. They only pulled the bikers apparently which is a tad discriminatory and not really the way to promote police PR.
They closed a roundabout on entering Bethlehem so it was like a car park all the way up SH2 to Omokoroa.

Re: escapetonz
 

By "patched up bikers" I guess you mean gangs. While it's not really an especially useful approach to deepen the gangs v. police mentality of gang members through this sort of operation, it isn't police overkill nor discrimination when viewed in the context of the rising proportion of crime attributable to gangs. Gangs and crime go hand in hand - that isn't contentious. What is contentious is how to deal with gangs and their crime.

Re: escapetonz
 

Yes as far as I know the bikers were members of a gang or number of gangs and I agree there is evidence that crime does surround these members of our society, however in this case no arrests were made after processing over 100 biker gang members and only 18 infringement notices were issues (possibly for minor irregularities with bikes, rego or wof's).
All were tested for alcohol and drugs, all passed and all fully complied with the instructions of the police.
It seems the police operation was put in place after a few members of the public complained about their presence riding down SH2 towards Tauranga but in the process the police pissed off the majority of the Bethlehem and surrounding communities who are law abiding citizens and were out that day minding their own business and made no apologies for it whatsoever.
An unnecessary waste of police time, the public's time and tax payers money in my opinion.
What the police should have done is applied a police presence and monitored the situation and if anything irregular occurred then carry out the operation somewhere away from a populated community and not block a major arterial route in to and out of the city.

Re: escapetonz
 

Do you speak for the entire of Bethlehem?!

People are so quick to heap criticism on the police yet we don't actually get to know what information they were acting on, nor what information they gained from that operation. Folk are often just as quick to criticize the police for not acting on information when it all goes tits up...

The way you write about the biker gangs one would think they were a persecuted minority but if you've been involved in the mopping up of crime and violence that is intimately linked with gangs in NZ you might have a more measured approach to describing them. People often claim that gang violence is largely contained to within gangs, yet this does not accurately reflect the abuse and violence that families and women associated with gangs experience. Sadly, gang violence and criminality is on the rise, or at least the last time I read a report about it it appeared to be. I agree that we cannot arrest our way out of the gang problem (sorry, that's a quote but can't for life of me remember where!) but in the past too much of a blind eye has been turned to the problem of gangs leaving whole communities blighted by their activities.

Re: escapetonz
 

Hey forget the police v bikers scenario of your UK days, these are simply thugs who supply drugs to young children.....and guess what...they ride bikes...that is why they were targets...tad discriminatory ...definitely the way to promote police PR but to the community that matter :sneaky:

Re: escapetonz
 

Nope I don't.
I speak for a tiny percentage of the Bethlehem community, but from the vibrations I heard when discussing community issues in the circles I'm involved with, nobody has heaped any praise on the police for that operation. Unfortunately for the police, the operation happened just after the new KMart opened at Bethlehem shopping centre which caused major ructions throughout the community due to the issue created with the roading system so they may have got a bad deal because of that ?
I have no idea what information the police were acting on and I agree they would be criticized no matter what they did as that's just the way it is.

I make no apologies for writing in the way I do. I'm a biker and yes in my opinion bikers don't get a fair bite of the cherry and are discriminated against and as such are somewhat persecuted....just look at the cost of vehicle license car v bike :blink:
Am I in a biker gang ?.....no and yes, all depends on an individuals interpretation of a gang.
I don't ride round with patched up gang members who display their paraphernalia and are in to anything illegal, but I do ride around with like-minded young to middle aged riders who love to get out and ride just for the sheer enjoyment of it and we have a facebook group with up to 900 members. Doesn't make me a criminal even though I'd guess a few of them bend the rules regarding wof's and rego's from time to time just like car drivers do.
Nor have I ever been remotely involved with mopping up afterwards or directly involved with anything to do with gangs in NZ. Yes, if I had experience of this I may have a different viewpoint, but I don't have the experience so can only maintain the viewpoint I have now.

I fail to see the point of your argument as I don't disagree with you.

I have an opinion on a police operation carried out in a busy community that directly affected me. On the whole, the people targeted by the police during that operation were discriminated against and taken to task for just riding in a group whilst minding their own business travelling to an event. That group apparently traveled down from Auckland but yet there are no articles stating they were stopped at any other town or village on the way, so why did Tauranga police see fit to pounce ?
If the police carried out the same operation but targeted a different group - lets take car drivers as an example, I'd say they would have at least got the same result if not come across more misdemeanors.

Re: escapetonz
 

The point is, you don't know why they were stopped or why they were stopped in Tauranga. There is a huge distinction between bikers who ride in groups and NZ gangs who happen to ride bikes. This operation was targeting the second. As a member of the first you should also wish to make the very clear distinction between the two. Bikers who ride in groups may indeed experience some discrimination and that is a shame but gangs who are also bikers are entirely different.