Covid-19 deniers and anti-lockdown protesters gathered at the TVNZ building in Auckland to protest the alert level 4 lockdown. Video / Cameron Pitney
As protesters gathered outside TVNZ's Auckland headquarters on the first day of the strict Covid-19 Delta variant lockdown one year ago, Luke Curran could sense the vitriol and potential for danger, he told a judge today.
The police sergeant, who said he had prior experience working with sometimes agitated protest groups, was tasked with having a team of officers enter the crowd to let people know they needed to go home or risk arrest.
"They attempted to, but the reaction was so hostile from the crowd I had to stop," he said during the second day of testimony in the trial of prominent Covid-19 conspiracy theorists Billy TK and Vinny Eastwood.
"I was significantly concerned for the safety of my staff ... I was concerned one of my staff was going to be assaulted, so we withdrew."
But testifying later on his own behalf, TK - a musician and failed political candidate whose full name is William Desmond Te Kahika - disagreed about how footage of the protest should be interpreted.
"I think it clearly shows that people were very, very docile," he said. "With the lockdown they were fearful, they were scared, and that's what you see in the footage."
Te Kahika and Eastwood, an online broadcaster, face two counts each of violating Covid-19 lockdown rules by organising and attending the August 18, 2021, protest. If convicted of the charges, they could face up to six months in jail.
Police arrest online broadcaster Vinny Eastwood at a lockdown protest in August 2021. Photo / Dean Purcell
As the trial started yesterday in Auckland District Court, Judge Peter Winter discharged an additional count for both men of failing to assist a constable who wanted access to their mobile phones.
Curran testified today that he had a phone conversation with Te Kahika about 40 minutes before the gathering in which the defendant acknowledged he was planning a protest with an expected attendance of 2-300 people. The officer then stood across the street, observing for about 30 minutes as an estimated crowd of 80-100 people formed, he recalled.
"No one was wearing a mask and there was no attempt to social distance," he said of the crowd. "They berated people who were walking by. There were people who were clearly media present who got berated as well."
Curran approached Te Kahika immediately after he gave a speech to the crowd and read aloud a letter warning him that he was violating lockdown rules and could be arrested if he didn't leave. As people around Te Kahika realised what the officer was doing, they began to get "excited or riled up", he said.
He was then tasked with issuing a letter to Eastwood, and seeing the "agitation and vitriol" of the crowd growing he decided to have other officers form a line behind him, he said. Eastwood, meanwhile, was yelling "non-sensically" into a megaphone and "essentially getting those around him riled up", the officer said.
Eastwood's lawyer, Nathan Batts, later had a video filmed by Eastwood that day played in court.
"Everybody stand down. No one else need be arrested today," Eastwood could be heard shouting to the crowd after Te Kahika's arrest as he moved across the street from TVNZ. "It's a tactical retreat, ladies and gentlemen. Do not antagonise, do not get in anybody's face."
But Eastwood's tone changed as police approached him with a letter.
"I need protection ladies and gentlemen. Please surround me. Please protect me," he said. "I need you guys to protect me, please! Please! Do not let them come for me. Please protect me!"
Anti-lockdown protesters gather outside TVNZ in August 2021. Photo / Dean Purcell
His requests for the crowd to intervene continued, even as he announced he would not be violent or aggressive.
"I have a 1-year-old daughter and a wife at home I want to return home to," he told the crowd, adding that he had PTSD following a prior protest arrest. "I am frightened. I need your solidarity. I need your support.
"They're going to try and take me. Now! Now! Please protect me! Do not let them take me!"
Curran described the defendant's behaviour at that time as trying to obstruct officers. Constable Alex Gardner seconded his interpretation of events, describing Eastwood's yelling as "like a call to arms" from a crowd that was "already quite hostile" with verbal threats.
During cross-examination of witnesses today, Te Kahika's lawyer, Paul Borich QC, pointed out no police were injured that day and suggested there was also no property damage.
Police and anti-lockdown protesters face off outside TVNZ on 18 August 2021. Photo / Dean Purcell
Te Kahika acknowledged on the witness stand that he organised the protest in spite of the lockdown "to try to get attention to the crying of the people". He and Eastwood had been at a speaking engagement south of Auckland when they learned of the lockdown. He decided to stop in Auckland, which was on his way home to the Far North, for a protest before heading home to begin complying with the lockdown order, he said.
Te Kahika said he had closely watched Black Lives Matter protests a year earlier, in which there was little social distancing or mask-wearing among the thousands of people in attendance despite alert level conditions at the time allowing for gatherings of no more than 100 people.
No one was arrested at that protest, which led him to believe that he could also lead a peaceful protest without police intervention, he said. But he also noted that the Black Lives Matter protest seemed to fit more closely with the "social principles" of the Labour government.
After talking and meeting with officers before the lockdown protest, Te Kahika said he was left with the impression that there was a risk he could be arrested but "they would inform me if it got too big or out of control" so he could shut it down before arrests occurred.
When police approached him with a letter, he did not realise it was intended as the final warning, he said.
"I didn't think he was telling me to stop," the defendant testified, explaining that had given his word he would shut the protest down if police had safety concerns. "Had the order been direct, that would have been a different kettle of fish."
Police, however, have testified throughout the trial that they sought to make it clear to Te Kahika that the protest was illegal and he faced arrest.
Te Kahika's testimony is set to continue when the trial resumes tomorrow.
