There’s been nothing standard about Vinnie Kahui’s journey to becoming a police officer, as he told Yvonne Tahana for TVNZ’s Marae programme.
Colourful background – it’s a phrase commonly used with criminals, dodgy businessmen, lawyers and or politicians.
Not really cops.
But it’s hard to think of a better way to describe Senior Constable Vinnie Kahui who is stationed on Auckland’s College Hill.
Kahui was interviewed for a yarn on TVNZ’s Marae unashamedly about chasing your dreams, no matter your age.
Because Vinnie didn’t get his dream job until he was 46. And even then at the 11th hour he almost didn’t graduate. We’ll get to that in a bit.
Still, to look at him you might think the 52-year-old is right smack bang in the middle of his career. He even has the slight mid-career puku – “It’s been a cold winter,” he reckons with a smile.
His recent history’s a laugh.
Before the rainy season in Tāmaki Makaurau, Kahui was in his uniform competing (badly) at the manu nationals.
Watch his supreme, albeit unfounded confidence pre-jump. Moving as if he were appearing in the WWE, and happy to egg himself on, the crowd cheered his poor execution as he hit the Waitematā at slow speed.
The woman chuckling in the background: priceless.
His boss Tama Morehu said it wasn’t Kahui’s form he was worried about that day.
“Yeah I wasn’t sure he was going to have a job the following day. But, no, that stuff is awesome.”
Something must’ve been in the water. Police minister Mark Mitchell jumped the week after.
Not your average cop
Anyway I’ve taken a diversion to make the point that Kahui isn’t you’re average cop.
He first applied when he was 20 or 21.
“At the time I wanted to join the police for the glamour side of it all. You know, drive fast cars, look cool, be physically fit, go arrest the world.
“I got denied because of maturity levels. Yeah, I wasn’t mature enough at the time.”
Between the 1990s and his next attempt at 44 there were other career adventures.
He was a courier driver, in the territorials, got some hours up on a commercial flying course, worked for court security and probations, there was even a bid for Auckland’s first Supercity mayor in 2010.
At the time he told Stuff that being the city’s number one politician wasn’t out of the realm of possibility – he’d done the numbers.
“I only need 750,000 people to vote for me. If I get 40 percent of the vote I’m a shoe-in.”
He was an unemployed dad at the time.
“So I thought ‘Oh well, there’s a job I can go for. So I threw my name in the hat, had a $200 campaign.
“People said I won’t get a hundred votes. I got 1177 and I managed to beat out the Communist Party candidate. So I was quite happy with that. I just thought ‘Oh give it a go’.
“It was fun. When you’re down on your luck you’ve got to have fun.”
Still, in the background, the desire to serve was growing.
“Your empathy starts to grow.”
He remembered growing up in Blockhouse Bay in the 1970s and 80s and needing to call the cops.
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“Unfortunately seeing the bad side of things. One of mum’s boyfriends had given her a hiding a couple of times. Ringing the police and the police not turning up,” he said.
“Yeah and I thought ‘Well that’s what I want to do when I get older is to be the cop that turns up.'”
He tried out when he was 44 and believes a rugby concussion meant he didn’t put his best foot forward.
Two years later he was back.
And this time, was his time. He was off to training college in Wellington.
‘If you can do better, do better’
He wasn’t the oldest in his class but he was there or thereabouts. The physical challenges like the Police Competency Test didn’t bother him – that’s all trainable, he argues.
“I think the, yeah, the physical side is the easiest, easy thing. You just train for it and you make sure that you don’t have to be first, but you have to be your time. But if you can do better, do better.”
It felt like this time around there was nothing stopping him, he said. Graduation day arrived and he was called to a meeting which he thought was odd. It was a cliffhanger he never saw coming.
He was told that a close whānau member was involved in organised crime and because of that top brass would be meeting to decide whether he’d be allowed to join the force.
“It was quite emotional. I had that meeting from 9 to lunchtime. I got sent down [to lunch and was told, ‘We’ll let you know by 4 o’clock this afternoon’.”
It was a few minutes to the ceremony actually starting when Kahui was finally told he’d be sworn in and that police would wrap support around him.
“My section, section two, they just came over. I’m sure they hugged me. A lot of my other mates from the other sections were my wing. Same thing as well. And that’s when you realise that you’re part of a family.”
Watch the full story on Marae on TVNZ 1 at 10.30am today and on TVNZ+
