Five young men spent Saturday night on the roof and within its cavity at Korowai Manaaki youth justice facility in Auckland. Photo / Alex Burton
Five young men spent Saturday night on the roof and within its cavity at Korowai Manaaki youth justice facility in Auckland. Photo / Alex Burton
Six young people have endured a wet and cold night on the roof of an Auckland justice facility.
The group remained on the roof at 40-bed Korowai Manaaki in the South Auckland suburb of Wiri this morning. They forced their way out of a unit yesterday.
Temperatures dropped to around 11C overnight and there was heavy rain in the area.
A police spokeswoman said this morning that police remained at the facility in a support capacity. Oranga Tamariki was expected to provide an update this morning.
Oranga Tamariki deputy chief executive Mike Bush was at the site leading the operation to end the stand-off last night, along with a “large contingent” of police and one team from Fire and Emergency NZ, Bush said.
Five young people spent last night on the roof and within its cavity at Korowai Manaaki youth justice facility in Auckland.
Photo / Alex Burton
Police were alerted at 12.40pm and Fenz at 2.39pm.
“Our priority is the safety of these young people and we are managing this situation with extreme caution, especially with the wet weather forecast overnight,” Bush said yesterday.
“We are practising safe and reasonable negotiation tactics and working to de-escalate the situation.”
The group, which increased to eight people at one point but was again at six as of 9pm last night, were all within the boundary of the facility, Bush said.
“There is no risk to public safety.”
Five young people spent last night on the roof and within its cavity at Korowai Manaaki youth justice facility in Auckland.
Photo / Alex Burton
The incident follows another, which was resolved with the help of a feed of KFC, involving five youths at Te Puna Wai ō Tuhinapo youth justice facility near Christchurch last Saturday.
A staff member received a broken wrist and four young people spent the night in Te Puna Wai ō Tuhinapo’s roof cavity last Saturday.
The fifth youth who also escaped to the roof came down in the evening.
The remaining four were brought down by ladder on Sunday morning, 24 hours after the incident began, and put in police custody.
However, Oranga Tamariki was criticised when it was revealed that after the stand-off came to an end the youths were given KFC, Stuff reported.
Those involved were “vulnerable young people” and the first approach was always to use least harmful ways to convince them to come down safely on their own terms, Bush told Newshub.
“Fast food was part of the negotiations and additional items were also used to attempt to bring the young people down throughout the day and overnight, such as clothing and hot drinks.”
Five young people spent last night on the roof and within its cavity at Korowai Manaaki youth justice facility in Auckland.
Photo / Alex Burton
There was no risk to public safety, but it was a “serious situation ... managed with extreme caution”, Bush said.
“We acknowledge the significant support from police ... I will be thoroughly reviewing what has led to this occurring.”
The incident was the second at Te Puna Wai ō Tuhinapo in four months, with six police vehicles and a fire truck called to the building in February after young people could be heard yelling out to each other from inside.
At least two young people were seen pacing on the facility’s roof.
