An eye for detail has seen three youths taken into custody overnight following a fleeing driver incident, which started in Pukekohe.
Counties Manukau South Area Commander, Inspector Joe Hunter, says around 9.40pm on Wednesday evening, Police observed two vehicles of interest travelling in a convoy on East Street.
“While the vehicles had not yet been reported stolen, a Police unit noticed both vehicles had broken quarter light windows and called for additional units and Eagle to assist,” he says.
“Upon noticing Police, one of the vehicles has left the area at high speed, while the second vehicle followed in the same direction.”
Police did not pursue, however Eagle continued to track both vehicles as they entered the Southern Motorway at Bombay and travelled north.
Despite Police deploying spikes at the Drury off-ramp, one of the vehicles re-entered the motorway after exiting and travelled on the wrong side of the road.
Inspector Hunter says this was extremely reckless behaviour.
“The vehicle has reached excessive speeds while narrowly missing several members of the public.”
The vehicle then exited the motorway at Ramarama and was successfully spiked. It has eventually come to a stop in the shoulder and two occupants fled on foot to a nearby field.
“They were both taken into custody without further incident a short time later,” says Inspector Hunter.
The second vehicle involved elected to stop for Police on the Drury off-ramp without incident and the sole occupant was also taken into custody.
Further enquiries established both vehicles had been stolen in earlier incidents.
“We are very lucky no members of the public were injured during this incident and I commend our staff whose keen spotting of the broken quarter light windows led us to these arrests,” says Inspector Hunter.
“We hope the public can be reassured with have no tolerance for this brazen behaviour in our communities.”
A 17-year-old male has been charged in relation to this incident and is due to appear in the Manukau Youth Court today.
Two 14-year-olds have been referred to Youth Aid.
