Superintendent Tim Anderson and Detective Superintendent Greg Williams discuss the Operation Highwater investigation into alleged drug dealing by the Mongrel Mob Barbarians.
That’s been rubbished as “ridiculous” by Police Minister Mark Mitchell, who doesn’t believe there is systemic bias in the force. He said some of the claims were moving into “conspiracy theory territory”.
Police on Tuesday said officers executed 30 search warrants “targeting identified people believed to be involved in a North Island-wide drug distribution network”. Twenty-eight people were arrested, and illegal drugs and firearms were also seized.
It was part of a “concentrated operation targeting members and associates of the Mongrel Mob Barbarian MC East Bay chapter based in Ōpōtiki” and followed what police described as an increase in occurrences of violent crime and other offending in the area.
While the operation was celebrated by Mitchell as dealing a “significant blow” to the gang, it’s been labelled by Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi as “police-sponsored terrorism” and a “continuation of the state’s predatory behaviour”.
“Ōpōtiki is once again being intentionally targeted and is the direct byproduct of this Government’s ‘tough on crime’ legislative changes,” said Waititi, also the MP for Waiariki.
“This predatory action only exacerbates the broken relationship between Te Whakatōhea and authorities, which has been strained for centuries, ever since the death of Rev Carl Sylvius Volkner in 1865.”
Waititi told the Herald in Parliament on Wednesday that police could execute search warrants, but they shouldn’t target “people on the peripheral” and “go into homes and upset the whole community” as he claimed happened.
“They can execute search warrants. But you go for the people that have committed those crimes, it shouldn’t be the people on the peripheral,” he said.
“We’re talking about kaumātua, we’re talking about mothers breastfeeding babies ... we’re talking about children returning back from school.”
He said this was a “direct result” of the Government’s “racist” anti-gang legislation and also questioned why the operation had occurred on the same day iwi leadership met at Tuahiwi Marae in Canterbury to discuss Māori “nationalism and liberation”.
“Was this about dominating about the headline news that Māori were doing too well, and they had to put a headline on Māori not doing well by raiding Ōpōtiki”.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi hit out at National after a police raid, during Question Time in Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Waititi’s claims were dismissed by the minister, however.
“It’s ridiculous ... it’s just ridiculous,” Mitchell told media.
“Our police are colour-blind. They serve without fear or favour, and they have done an outstanding job in Ōpōtiki, and Auckland, and Waikato.”
He called the police force “world-class” and again praised their efforts to clamp down on gangs.
Mitchell said the police were “extremely sensitive and careful with everything they do, especially around women and children”.
Later in Parliament, Waititi asked Mitchell whether he was confident that “bias and structural racism in the police force” didn’t influence the conduct of police during “raids in Māori communities, such as the raids in Ōpōtiki yesterday”.
Despite that, Mitchell rejected there was systemic racism and bias in the police force. Members of Te Pāti Māori were yelling out that he should read the report.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell responded to questions from Rawiri Waititi from Te Pāti Māori. Photo / Mark Mitchell
In response to the claims on the raids happening where children and women were, Mitchell said it wasn’t the police officers who “choose to keep weapons and drugs in the houses”.
“It’s those gang members that choose to do that. We know that there’s been too much intergenerational harm related to gangs in this country. We should all be motivated to addressing that. The police’s job is to crack down on the violence and the drugs and the misery that these gangs peddle in our communities.”
He said police were consulting with iwi and hapū, and the suggestion that the operation was meant to coincide with te hui ā-motu was “starting to move into conspiracy theory territory”.
“The reality of it is I know that the member sought reassurance from the commissioner, and the commissioner gave him reassurance that that wasn’t the case. I have visited Ōpōtiki personally myself because I love Ōpōtiki.”
Waititi and Mitchell briefly spoke in the House after the questioning.
In the police statement on Tuesday, Bay of Plenty District Commander Superintendent Tim Anderson said it was a “good day for Ōpōtiki”.
“The termination of this operation is a clear message to gang members selling illegal drugs across the Bay of Plenty that we will find you and you will be held accountable for your destructive behaviour.
“We will continue to relentlessly pursue criminals who prey on our communities and cause a huge amount of harm and misery in their own communities with their drug dealing and violent behaviour.
“From my travels around the Bay of Plenty, the feedback from different iwi leaders and the wider community is that they’ve had enough of this type of criminal offending.”
Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub Press Gallery office.
