Suspected burglars may have been vigilante victims

Police are investigating allegations that suspected burglars fleeing Ngawi residents by car were fired upon with a shotgun and rammed by a vehicle before being pelted with rocks and beaten during a chase and siege that ended in their arrest.

"We are investigating reports that some Ngawi residents may have gone beyond the law as they tried to catch these offenders," Senior Sergeant Warwick Burr, of Masterton, said yesterday.

The Wairarapa Times-Age outlined on Monday the arrest of two Carterton men, both 17, and a Masterton boy, 15, after the three were reportedly seen driving in a stolen car and committing a burglary on Sunday at the Wairarapa coastal community.

The teenagers were arrested after Ngawi residents blockaded a road out of the settlement to stop their escape. Police arrived and waited with residents until dawn on Monday for the trio to come out of hiding from a nearby hillside.

Charges are yet to be laid against the three teenagers, Mr Burr said.

The laying of any further charges arising from the incident would depend on the outcome of police inquiries, he said.

A source, who declined to be named, told the Times-Age the car driven by the teenagers had been fired upon twice by a shotgun at a road block residents had created using a bulldozer and another vehicle.

Shotgun pellets struck the fleeing car in the boot and sparks erupted from a rear tyre, but the vehicle breached the blockade and carried on travelling.

Armed residents chased the teenagers in another vehicle, the source said, ramming the fleeing car and firing several more shots at it during a short-lived and violent pursuit.

"It's disturbing to think this was done, really shocking. They could have been killed. Especially when they were being rammed and shot at while both cars are bouncing along and moving at speed."

The trio allegedly abandoned the vehicle soon afterward and hid in scrub on a nearby hillside before police arrived.

Some of the residents climbed the hill above two of the teenagers and "rolled boulders down" and pelted them with rocks to force them out of hiding, the source said. One of the teenagers was struck by a boulder and injured, he said.

Mr Burr said he was unaware of any of the teenagers requesting medical attention after they were arrested.

The source said that after breaking cover the pair were beaten and while being led handcuffed down the hill, one was pushed and fell some distance to the bottom.

"It's really bad what these kids did but what was done to them and what could have happened was far worse," the man said.

"It was like a lynch mob, a posse, and everything about it really disappoints me."

- WAIRARAPA TIMES-AGE