Rotorua’s mayor says the city is in desperate need of extra police and has renewed her call for reinforcements after a girl was attacked outside the library.<\/p>\n
It was the second time it had happened in the past week – to two different girls.<\/p>\n
Rotorua mayor Tania Tapsell said the city was already behind in police numbers, considering it had one of the highest crime rates in the country.<\/p>\n
Residents outside the same library where the two teenagers were attacked said they were becoming concerned for their safety.<\/p>\n
“You’re almost looking over your shoulder, you’re checking the environment out, that’s for sure,” Lesley said.<\/p>\n
Another resident, Cheyenne, said she was becoming worried for her kids.<\/p>\n
“I’m now scared to now actually let my children catch the bus themselves, it’s a horrible time.”<\/p>\n
“It’s not good that you can’t be in public by yourself without worrying about someone attacking you,” a father said.<\/p>\n
Many of them agreed with their mayor, and said more police would make them feel safer in the city’s CBD.<\/p>\n
“I would like to see a higher security presence,” Cheyenne said. “I think that would be a good preventative measure first, at least.”<\/p>\n
“Nothing seems to be done about it really, they just carry on,” one commuter said.<\/p>\n
But Taniele Edwards, a hap\u016b member of Tura Te Ngakau, a trust supporting local hap\u016b and iwi, said that would only inflame things.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think that’s the solution at all,” she said. “I think it would cause more damage, having a police presence just encourages conflict.<\/p>\n
“Youngsters don’t have a good relationship with police.”<\/p>\n
Having a daughter of her own, Edwards had been told how awful bus stops can be for young people.<\/p>\n
“The kids and their bullying tactics – how they group together, and they just attack anybody that’s there that they feel they can get on top of. ”<\/p>\n
Better, and safer school transport, along with more M\u0101ori wardens could help keep younger people safe in the short term, Edwards said.<\/p>\n
Police Minister Ginny Andersen said arrangements were being made to boost police presence.<\/p>\n
“I’ve just spoken with Tania Tapsell, in terms of what the local plan is to get back on top of safety in the community,” Andersen said.<\/p>\n
However, National Party spokesperson for police Mark Mitchell said little would be achieved.<\/p>\n
“She stood in the house 16 times, in the last few months that she’s been minister, saying that people should feel safer,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I don’t expect any response from Ginny Andersen at all to understand or to know what to do with the situation in Rotorua.”<\/p>\n
Anderson said the mayor would be meeting tomorrow with the police’s Rotorua Area Commander, Herby Ngawhika.<\/p>\n
Source: RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rotorua’s mayor says the city is in desperate need of extra police and has renewed her call for reinforcements after a girl was attacked outside the library. It was the second time it had happened in the past week – to two different girls. Rotorua mayor Tania Tapsell said the city was already behind in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7528,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7526\/revisions\/7528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}