Detective Inspector Scott Beard is urging the public to come forward with any information they may have into the stabbing of the dairy worker in Sandringham on Wednesday night. Video / NZ Herald
A fatal attack on a Sandringham dairy worker and a spate of ram raids have some people wondering if fortified shops will be the new normal.
At a vigil outside Rose Cottage Superette in Sandringham, Dairy and Business Owners Group chairman Sunny Kaushal said shopkeepers had installed jail-like bars and“caged themselves” due to safety fears.
“That’s an awful position for us as a country,” National Party police spokesman Mark Mitchell said. “We do not want to look like a Baghdad or a Johannesburg.
“Basically our shopkeepers are having to fortify our shops.”
Mitchell said a recent visit to Hamilton showed him the problem wasn’t confined to Auckland.
“I visited a sports shop that had been hit three times. They had to install their own bollards.”
Mitchell said bollards were installed inside the shop after a ram raid, and the retailer could not get permission to put bollards outside the shopfront.
Mitchell said lawlessness and an increase in organised crime’s infiltration of society was undermining New Zealand’s ability to attract and retain talented people.
Debate has emerged on whether installing fog cannons would prevent more crime, and why more assistance was not provided for shops to install the devices.
“There are quite a few shops that have installed them, and they are quite useful if you’re in an aggravated robbery situation,” Mitchell said.
The Rose Cottage Superette manager was killed while pursuing an armed robber.
Dairy owner Andy Granger made his own metal bar security system due to fears thieves would target him. Since his 2017 project, more shops have reportedly been fortified. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Owners Una and Andy Granger at the time said they hoped the cage would stop armed robbers from leaping at them.
Another Auckland CBD dairy near the Sky Tower more recently installed a cage around the counter.
Cages have been present at some inner-city liquor stores for decades but until recently were a rarity at dairies.
Mitchell said Auckland and its new mayor Wayne Brown might be wise to consider a “broken windows” approach to policing and crime prevention.
The approach very broadly relied on the belief tackling petty crime and damage - such as broken windows - could prevent more serious crime.
It achieved that, some argued, by reducing indulgence of crime overall and by displaying societal intolerance of disorder.
Some of the approach’s backers said it caught habitually antisocial people predisposed to committing more serious crimes.
The approach was most famously applied in New York City in the 1990s, although its legacy was controversial.
“Mayor Brown is going to be very focused on getting the CBD safe,” Mitchell said.
National Party police spokesman Mark Mitchell says the Government has failed in its promise to reduce crime. Photo / NZME
Unlike the US, New Zealand cities did not have independent police forces. But Mitchell, a former cop, said that shouldn’t stop civic leaders such as Brown working with police to tailor crime prevention solutions for Auckland.
“You’ve got these gangs that have got connections to about 15 of the licensed premises. He needs to work with the police and put a plan together with police.”
Mitchell said a National Party government would “focus on fixing the small stuff” and ensure police were properly supported.
He said the Labour Cabinet hobbled attempts, even by well-intentioned Labour MPs or ministers, to adopt an approach where more beat police would patrol the streets.
Police at the scene of a fatal stabbing at Rose Cottage Superette in Sandringham. Photo / Hayden Woodward
Criminologist Dr Michael Roguski said rhetoric the National Party and its leader Christopher Luxon espoused was not the solution.
“The discourse that’s coming out of Luxon is just the ‘tough on crime’ discourse that is not addressing the issues of early intervention and prevention,” Roguski said.
“There’s so much evidence that we need to work with whole families and whole communities.”
Roguski said only a very small number of people committed a violent crime.
And he said Luxon’s proposal last week of boot camps for youth offenders was idiotic.
Roguski said New Zealand missed many chances to intervene in the lives of at-risk people because the mental health system was under huge pressure.
“It could be argued that the young ones who are getting into trouble are just a reflection of a national system under enormous stress.”
