"Eastern District to benefit from additional Police"

Eastern District Commander Superintendent Tania Kura has welcomed the 114 officers allocated to Eastern District today by Police Commissioner Mike Bush.

The new staff were allocated as part of the 1800 additional Police funded through a $298.8 million increase in Budget 2018 that built on an increase from the previous year.

“This staff allocation is great news for the families and communities in Eastern District,” says Superintendent Kura.

“It will give local police a greater ability to respond quickly and effectively to the growing range of events that impact on the safety of our people, and it will give police staff the chance to tackle some long standing problems in new and innovative ways. With the extra resource I expect that we will have the ability to quickly target problems from a number of angles in order to ensure people are safe and feel safe.”

“Eastern District Police are focused on protecting families in their homes and on our roads.

Keeping families safe from violence, reducing the impact on them from drugs and gangs, and preventing their homes and businesses being burgled are priorities for us. Over time we will be investing more staff into these areas with the establishment of a number of new groups to complement the reorganising of our existing teams.”

In addition to increasing frontline officers to prevent and respond to crime and calls for service, Eastern District will establish a new Precision Targeting Team that will support our current focus on priority and prolific offenders, aiming to reduce crime such as burglary and robbery.

The allocation also includes the introduction of a Serious and Organised Crime Taskforce in order to combat and prevent gang-related crime such as methamphetamine supply, violence and intimidation, and other serious offending.

“Our ability to be visible, present and mobile across wider sections of the community and for longer periods will also come as these staff roll out.

The teams we deploy will work together with the community alongside other government agencies and iwi to reduce the harm being experienced.

“With 114 extra staff the community will see a marked difference in how we tackle crime.

We will continue work to prevent crime, be more agile in our approach to problems and some of the underlying issues.”

All 12 District Commanders will now be working with their leaders to determine deployment decisions at an area and station level.

These decisions will be communicated once confirmed.

ENDS

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