Terror at park on Home Services

Feb

Terror at park

posted by admin in Window Cleaning

The problems of the past weekend were the last straw for a group of residents, who have decided %26quot;enough is enough and have pushed the North Canterbury Neighbourhood Support Network to call a public meeting on the issue.
As well, the group of residents has a meeting arranged with Waimakariri District mayor Ron Keating _ they were exasperated the earliest they could get an appointment with him was today.
The worst incident happened on Sunday, when a Rangiora man was stoned while cycling through Dudley Park with his part-Chinese teenage daughter.
Members of a group of %26quot;skinny little fellows aged about 17 began hurling racial abuse at the girl. When her father asked them to stop, one of the group began throwing lumps of concrete at him from the roof of the tractor shed.
He suffered severe bruising and a puncture wound in one shoulder, requiring medical treatment.
%26quot;Theyre just cowards, They werent prepared to take me on, just throw rocks at me, the father said.
%26quot;If a nasty sawn-off little runt, filled up with liquor and drugs and standing on the roof of the tractor shed, thinks hes tough….
The man said he was not a fighter, but pitching chipped-off concrete half as big as ones head from a roof could do a lot of damage.
%26quot;It could kill somebody if they were hit on the head and itd seriously hurt a child if there were no adults around.
Ironically, the rock thrower hit one of his own group, as well as the father trying to protect his daughter from their racial abuse.
The man said he had lived in Rangiora for much of the last 30 years and he was saddened the situation had got %26quot;beyond a joke.
%26quot;Theres definitely a nasty tone around the town at the moment, with these guys spouting racist abuse at people.
A group of Rangiora women are calling for action to bring a halt to the weekend drinking and drug-taking in Dudley Park. They want to remain anonymous because they have already been threatened and suffered broken windows from rock-throwing youths and they feared for the well-being of their children if they became publicly known.
Sunday afternoons incident prompted at least five 111 calls to the police for action, but one of the women said the Rangiora car on duty was at Ohoka and not available to attend the Dudley Park assault.
%26quot;A 111 call is for life and death situations. Another time I called 111, the police turn up with sirens screaming and the group just dispersed. So this time I rang them on the ordinary number and suggested they didnt use the siren, which they agreed to.
As a result, she said, police confiscated a lot of liquor from congregating young people last Friday. However, it did not stop the problem.
Another nearby resident said the problem had become a lot worse in the past six months, with more broken glass, noise and abuse of passers-by by young people congregating in Dudley Park.
The women said two distinct groups, each about eight to 10 strong, appeared to be forming. One of them involved children probably still at primary school and led by two older youths, the others were about 17.
%26quot;This is a lovely park and its a lovely area to live nearby, but were no longer comfortable sending our children over to the park to play, said one.
%26quot;We want to work with the police on this but we wonder if the local police are under-manned. We want to be able to get our local police at weekends.
She said she had been told by police a couple of times that they could not send an officer around to Dudley Park because he or she might not be safe if outnumbered.
The women wanted a sign erected at Dudley Park, similar to those at entrances to Victoria Park, clearly indicating no liquor was allowed there. They also want a zero-tolerance policing of the liquor ban.
Another who would welcome community action against loutish behaviour at Dudley Park was Sicon maintenance man Martyn Bennetts, who spent every Monday cleaning up broken glass, beer cans, used condoms, sealable plastic bags used for solvent abuse and %26quot;all sorts of other nasty stuff after the weekend.
%26quot;Its not only boys, there are lots of girls among them too,%26quot; Bennetts said.
He was sweeping the courts opposite Rangiora Borough School _ regularly used by primary school pupils for their play _ to get rid of smashed bottles and shards of glass liberally littering the surface when the Northern Outlook caught up with him on Monday morning.
%26quot;This is what happens when you allow liquor to be sold to children,%26quot; Bennetts said, adding that was his own opinion, not his companys policy.
Rangiora Borough School principal, Alan Sutton, said there was one hell of a mess and broken glass scattered around Dudley Park after the weekend.
%26quot;It was just like a tip this (Monday) morning.%26quot;
The school was very aware of the danger to children playing there, he said.
The school also had trouble with bottles being hurled over the fence on to the school grounds from time to time.
%26quot;The bottom line is its only half a dozen or a dozen kids who are doing all the damage, not the majority.
There is one ray of hope: Rangiora Florists has donated a floral arrangement to the abused daughter of the injured man to show the communitys support for her.
Rangiora community crimewatch chairman Murray Clarke said members on patrol in the crimewatch car were reporting a lot more verbal abuse than they used to get, but stopping behaviour like that at the weekend was very difficult.
As a member of the Waimakariri District Councils Rangiora advisory board, he understood there was to be discussion this evening during the public forum section about the problem associated with drinking and drug-taking youths.
Community constable Robbie Brine said he was on duty Friday night and said he attended three calls to Dudley Park, without finding anybody. He suggested they had %26quot;scarpered when they heard police were coming over their scanners.
%26quot;Id like to take the wind out of this a bit. Its no good raving at a public meeting. Id like a quiet meeting with nearby residents, perhaps next Wednesday evening and see what we can all do.