Canterbury Police District Commander Superintendent Tony Hill says the safety of his staff is always front of mind after a stolen car rammed into a police vehicle on QEII Drive in Christchurch.
Hill confirmed it was fortunate no one was injured in Wednesday’s crash. “I’m told the officers are uninjured, which is great news, and so is the individual involved as well. These things are concerning,” he said.
“We go through spates of these where we get reasonable numbers of pursuits or fleeing driver events,” Hill said. “By and large, our staff do not pursue vehicles if they think there is high risk. On this occasion it seems like the officer was unaware the vehicle was coming up behind him at high speed and potentially the offender targeted the car.”
Hill said making sure officers return home safely at the end of their shift was what keeps him awake at night. “We do a lot to protect our staff, but we do know we deploy them into dangerous environments from time to time and pursuits are one of those things. I have to say I am super impressed with the maturity of our staff. They know if they go into pursuits they are unlikely to resolve them quickly and they risk putting the community at harm as well.”
Instead, officers use other tactics. “We try to resolve them by working out where the offender might go to, potentially using road spikes instead of just chasing them. It is much safer for everyone,” Hill said.
Commercial helicopters have been used in recent weeks to track stolen vehicles, but Hill said a permanent police helicopter for Canterbury was not on the cards.
“Undoubtedly it is a safe way to resolve these things if we can, but often these incidents start and finish in such a short amount of time it is not practical to actually get the helicopter in position. If you think about the cost involved, we can do a lot of policing with that money in different ways,” he said.
On youth crime, Hill said ram raids had fallen dramatically across the country including Christchurch. “The reality is that this group of offenders has moved on to other things. They are stealing cars and driving them around rather than committing ram raids,” he said.
He said a small cohort of offenders continued to take up a disproportionate amount of police time. “It is not unique to Canterbury. In all districts you see a notable decrease in offending when a very small number of offenders are in custody or put somewhere they cannot offend. Our focus has been on youth offending in general and taking a whole of family approach to stop the cycle.”
Boy racer activity also continues to cause concern, particularly around Banks Peninsula where residents are raising funds for their own CCTV cameras.
Hill said Canterbury police had one of the strongest units in the country targeting antisocial road users. “We have got a team dedicated to policing them and we are very effective. Hand on heart I would say we are probably ahead of most in terms of our ability to police this group. We sometimes over deploy to events to make sure the risk is managed. What we cannot always control are half a dozen cars getting together spontaneously on a Friday or Saturday night, but once we are made aware of them we do deploy.”
On the Canterbury policing district review, Hill said more than 200 submissions had been received from police staff and more than 800 from the public. “Arguably the people who understand policing services the best are our people and I personally read every one of those submissions. It gave me a really good understanding of where we have got to in terms of the proposal,” he said.
Community concerns had also been carefully considered. “Once we got into the room and started to talk about the evolving way police services are delivered I think people understood what we were trying to achieve. Communities want reassurance that the service they value now will continue even if we do things in a slightly different way. Our focus has been making sure we can provide a great service in a balanced way across the district,” Hill said.
This week also marks a milestone for the police commander, 35 years since he joined the force. He said the job had changed enormously. “When I first joined police it was not uncommon to go into a detective’s office and see ashtrays on the table with people smoking. We look back now and probably scratch our heads and think what were we thinking.”
Despite the changes, Hill said the role remained a privilege. “It felt like a privilege to join on day one and it still feels like that today. There are days you would do it without pay and days we cannot pay you enough to do the job. But the thing I get the most pleasure out of is leading this team in this district. Thirty five years have gone by so fast.”
He said he was grateful to still enjoy the job as much as when he started. “I am not going to say I have enjoyed absolutely every day, but the days I have not enjoyed have been few and far between. Often I say to new staff this does not feel like a job, it feels like a privilege.”
