Gangs force woman and kids to flee

[sparrow]

Totally unacceptable:

Gang ransacks Lower Hutt family home
By BRITTON BROUN - The Dominion Post | Thursday, 12 February 2009
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WHAT A STATE: The ransacked lounge of the burgled house, from which a woman and her children fled. Photo 1 of 3
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Mongrel Mob gang members forced a terrified neighbour and her two young children from their home, then ransacked it for nearly all its contents the next day.
Police have described the gang-plagued street in Pomare as "the closest you get to the Bronx in Lower Hutt" and say even their officers avoid it at night for safety.
The traumatised family have now fled the district and police say they have "contingencies" for their protection.
Fifty police officers, some of them armed, made dawn raids on seven houses in and around Pomare's Farmer Cres yesterday.
Ten patched gangsters and associates were arrested. Most of them appeared in Lower Hutt District Court on a range of burglary, drug and intimidation charges.
As the gang members were bailed back to their homes, police said it was not safe for The Dominion Post to visit Farmer Cres last night. Police gave journalists an escort, while other police cars patrolled the area.
Though children played on footpaths, there was an eerie quiet in the street. Patched Mob members darted inside houses as the police car approached and one watched through binoculars from the top floor of one of many grey state housing blocks, before shouting and gesturing at the squad car.
Constable Stu Rota said police regularly had missiles thrown at them in the street and one officer was badly assaulted when he attended a domestic incident before Christmas. "It's not the safest place to go at night. We only go in there if we have to."
"It depends on what kind of mood they're in and what they're up to. It's the biggest concentration of gang members [in Lower Hutt]. Go through there any time of day and you'll see a patch."
A terrified resident said she feared for her family's safety. "It's a scary place to live because of the Mongrel Mob. There are always loud parties, boy racers screeching round, and yelling and swearing. We want to move out, just to protect my children."
Inside the burgled state house, all that could be seen were toys scattered across the living-room floor, blankets and a few pieces of upturned furniture.
Inspector Geoff Gwyn said the woman and her children, aged four and two, were threatened by three gang members and told to get out of their home on February 1. The property was burgled by gang members the next day.
"They emptied almost everything from the house a 42-inch TV, electric appliances, whiteware, beds and bedding, even food."
The heavy police response was not simply because of gang involvement. "The safety of a woman and her children were threatened and they were forced from their home. The burglary is almost secondary."
Between the burglary and when Housing NZ returned to the house last week, someone broke in and stole the hot water cylinder, Mr Gwyn said.
Stolen items were found during yesterday's raids, including an $8500 harp taken from a car in Wellington. A high-powered air rifle and cannabis were also found.
All of the gang members, aged between 17 and 49, surrendered to police peacefully.
The arrests came just a day after legislation giving police greater powers to tackle gangs passed its first reading in Parliament.

[Lux]

Hmmm...this is quite strange because I was talking to someone a couple of weeks ago about P and all the terrible things that happen...and they were telling me how P is not consistent in NZ, theres no regular supply so thats why you might see a whole lot of ugly crimes happening at once when the supply is short. She also said she'd been working with a family who'd recently had their home cleaned out by the mob, apparently the son of the people who were cleaned out had been selling drugs on Mob turf, so they (the mob) were collecting there share of the booty - mob style.

[sparrow]

You know if they're in HNZ houses and this goes for all people living in them they should behave. It's a privilege to live there and not a right. There are waiting lists for people. If I was in HNZ I would just get tough. Act this way and you're out. I don't know what HNZ's policy is but they should have some caveats or qualifications in there that if you participate in illegal activities or destroy property etc - you're out and can be chased for the cost of fixing up the place. It annoys me when there are people waiting to get in that are desperate that those that are in can behave this way and in turn, have a serious affect on other people's quality of life.

[treeman]

I agree totally with you sparrow.When state houses were first built in New Zealand the idea was a house to live in with low rental costs so that the tennants could save to buy their own house. A hand up but it has been abused by a lot of people. I saw on the telly the other night a chap complaing about his state house being infested with cockroaches and vermin.But the camera showed rubbish all through the house and holes in walls. he was hoping to get a new state house, but he could not (for some reason) keep the one he was living in clean so a new house would end up with the same problems his old house has.

[sparrow]

Yeah - it's just crazy. I think they should also reward good tenants in HNZ by putting them first on the waiting lists for places in good areas or newer accommodation. Bad tenants need to be punished and good tenants should be rewarded. The good tenants could always choose to stay (if they wanted to), but if I was HNZ I would start introducing a reward system.

I don't know what the answer is but I wouldn't be hanging around doing hand-wringing if people were using my house for illegal activity and destroying it. They'd be gone.

[treeman]

I see key has announced there is to be more state houses built. If they dotted houses all around the place I think it would be better than having blocks of units in one area.

[sparrow]

They tried pepper potting though and it didn't seem to work. You have State Housing areas in quite wealthy areas (Fendalton in ChCh is one) where you can still see the marked distinction. I agree with you in principle though. I wouldn't like to see us go the Council Estate in England route. Gawd. That's terrible.

I know that HNZ rents some houses off private owners for State tenants. I'd like to see how this could work because you would already have established areas and if you bought a couple of houses here, there and everywhere and put people in that might work?

Hmmmm. It's an interesting one ...

[sparrow]

With thanks to bingbong:

Poor 'terrorised by gangs'

By BRITTON BROUN - The Dominion Post | Friday, 13 February 2009
A flawed Housing New Zealand policy has allowed gangs to take over too many of the country's streets, Police Minister Judith Collins says.

The criticism comes after a woman and her two young children were allegedly threatened and forced from their Lower Hutt home by neighbouring Mongrel Mob members.

Pomare's Farmer Cres is well known as a Mongrel Mob enclave, with at least nine families linked to the gang living there. Police told The Dominion Post that their officers avoided the area.

More than 50 police swooped on seven properties and arrested 10 gang members and associates early on Tuesday morning.

Ms Collins praised the decisive police action but said whole streets had been taken over by gangs in the past few years. The Government would act to disperse the groups.

"In a select committee I was on, Housing New Zealand actually confessed that they took gang affiliations into consideration when they housed them ... That's not acceptable. High and middle-income earners never have to deal with it. Poor New Zealanders who can't choose where they live ... are the most terrorised by these gangs."

Housing NZ regional manager Pia Searancke said officials tried not to house rival gang members near each other, or to place too many people from one gang in the same area. But the corporation did not always know if people were gang members.

The Pomare accused who face a variety of charges, including burglary, intimidation and cannabis possession could be evicted from their homes for breaching tenancy rules if they had committed crimes in the homes or intimidated neighbours, she said. A tough approach to tenancy breaches and "zero tolerance" to anti-social behaviour would be implemented.

The woman who was threatened would not comment to The Dominion Post yesterday.

Lower Hutt Mayor David Ogden said threatening women and children was "deplorable", but it was too easy simply to condemn gangs. Some gang members wanted better lives for their children.

Although the council was doing what it could including running leadership courses for children at Pomare School the bulk of the responsibility rested with Housing NZ.

"Socially it's not a good thing to have all the state houses crammed together in huge areas," he said. "Quite often there are no doctors, shops or markets where they can get cheap food."

Housing NZ is in the early stages of a 10-year plan to revitalise Lower Hutt's state housing.

A flawed Housing New Zealand policy has allowed gangs to take over too many of the country's streets, Police Minister Judith Collins says.


---------------------------------

Collins is saying similar things to you, treeman. I agree with her on most of it.

[treeman]

I have seen this from a diferent aspect.Going into these areas to do area inquires in relation to a burglary or assault and having the gangs close ranks and become hostile to the police and intimidating non gang member street residents into keeping their mouths shut.
Often being sent back to the same area a couple of hours later to escort ambulance staff retrieving an assault victim. The one the gangs think narked.