Police are alarmed their staff and patrol cars are intentionally being rammed by offenders every second day across the country.
The findings are outlined in an internal police document released to 1News, raising serious concerns that vehicles have become the weapon of choice against the thin blue line.
Deputy Police Commissioner Tania Kura said offenders are more brazen than ever when it comes to fleeing police.
“People who’ve got stolen vehicles or evidence in their vehicle that they don’t want to be caught. Sometimes people actually just want to hurt us because we are police people.”
There is concern police have little in their tool kit to respond.
“There is not a tactical option police have except getting out of the way and withdrawing,” said Police Association President Chris Cahill.
A document released to 1News, reveals the number of intentional rammings of police amounts to one every second day across the country, some with serious consequences. “An officer a month is hospitalised because of an injury in a ramming – that’s not minor injuries – this is hospitalised,” said Cahill.
He adds it’s showing no sign of slowing down. “Many of them are quite young offenders too which does add to the difficulty of how you deal with it. But it has to stop given the risk officers are facing.”
This week alone, three patrol cars were rammed after a driver attempted to escape police in Lower Hutt. A 49 year old is facing multiple charges over the incident, while several officers received minor injuries.
“We had five police staff involved in that event. They were quite shaken by that, rightly so, but I’m really proud of the way they made some good decisions,” said Kura.
The report recommends trialling drones to track vehicles fleeing or police ramming events, but that’s left many divided.
“Using technology such as drones to do that in other centres makes sense and it’s well worth looking at,” said Cahill.
Meanwhile, Kura said: “What I would be more concerned about is making sure our staff are out of that scene immediately, [rather] than waiting for a drone to come and deploy.”
Instead police are looking at new tactics and more training.
“There’s a number of things that continue to be looked at, and as yet I don’t think there’s a silver bullet answer for any of this. If we were to wait for big reports to make a difference to us, I think we probably missed the point,” said Kura.
The problem is proving costly for police too, with repairs taking time and taking more patrol cars off the streets.
