{"id":9213,"date":"2024-02-11T10:08:42","date_gmt":"2024-02-10T21:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=9213"},"modified":"2024-02-11T10:08:42","modified_gmt":"2024-02-10T21:08:42","slug":"police-minister-mark-mitchell-confronted-by-emotional-accounts-of-violence-against-shopworkers-at-public-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=9213","title":{"rendered":"Police Minister Mark Mitchell confronted by emotional accounts of violence against shopworkers at public meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The new Police Minister was confronted by emotional first-hand accounts of violence against shopworkers on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Mark Mitchell was at a packed public meeting where he was challenged to walk the talk, and crack down on retail crime.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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‘Congratulations, Minister!’: Matey texts between Coster, Mitchell revealed<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The new Police Minister strolled into a room full of folk who want much more than just a smile and a handshake.<\/p>\n

At the packed public meeting today in Papatoetoe, organiser Sunny Kaushal made his expectation clear to the new Coalition Government.<\/p>\n

“Immediate action to address the retail crime – an emergency that everyone now acknowledges is real,” Kaushal, chair of the Dairy and Business Owners Group, said.<\/p>\n

Seated next to Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown, Courts Minister Nicole McKee and police officials, Mitchell heard emotional first-hand accounts from victims of retail crime.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been a victim of a knife attack in my dairy shop on 5th October. I’m so, so lucky to be alive,” one person said.<\/p>\n

Papatoetoe worker Ghouse Majeed was assaulted two weeks ago by masked offenders, who entered the Mobil petrol station he works at, in south Auckland.<\/p>\n

“They started beating me, then I tried to run away outside… when I’m trying to run away, one guy at the gate, he was guarding the gate with a hammer,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The hammer would have hit my head… I just escaped from that.”<\/p>\n

The offenders could be seen stocking up on vapes, cigarettes and cash before fleeing in a vehicle.<\/p>\n

Majeed ended up in Middlemore Hospital and is still recovering.<\/p>\n

The purpose of this meeting, organised by the Dairy and Business Owners Group, was to put their concerns face-to-face, to the new Coalition Government to demand action on retail crime.<\/p>\n

Because it’s getting worse. In their briefing to the new minister, Police warned retail crime “continues to grow in reporting volume, alongside concerns of increasing threats and violence”.<\/p>\n

The previous Labour Government’s $15 million Retail Crime Prevention Programme has overseen more than 3000 security installations, like bollards and CCTV and over 2000 fog cannon subsidies have been approved.<\/p>\n

Mitchell told the crowd his focus is getting more police on the streets and re-focusing the justice system to be tougher on criminals.<\/p>\n

“The focus in our justice system came off the victims and went on to the offenders,” he said.<\/p>\n

Courts Minister Nicole McKee acknowledged that backlog in the justice system is a major hurdle.<\/p>\n

But she talked up the Coalition Government’s planned crackdown on youth offending.<\/p>\n

“This Government has committed to creating a new young serious offender category and establish\u00a0 new young offender military academies,” she said.<\/p>\n

“When it comes to retail crime, we are working hard to turn around a situation that has been allowed to bake in over the last six years,” Mitchell added.<\/p>\n

But it’s all the people at the meeting who are growing tired of waiting.<\/p>\n

Source: Newshub and TV 3<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new Police Minister was confronted by emotional first-hand accounts of violence against shopworkers on Saturday. Mark Mitchell was at a packed public meeting where he was challenged to walk the talk, and crack down on retail crime. ‘Congratulations, Minister!’: Matey texts between Coster, Mitchell revealed The new Police Minister strolled into a room full […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9213","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\/9213","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=9213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9215,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9213\/revisions\/9215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}