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Marion van Dijk/Stuff
Three youths have been arrested after a joyride across Invercargill. (File photo)
Three teens have been arrested for unlawfully taking a vehicle, driving dangerously, and fleeing police.
On Wednesday morning police received reports of “youths” driving a potentially stolen car erratically “all over Invercargill”, Southland’s area commander Inspector Mike Bowman said.
The driver of the vehicle was baiting police, trying to encourage officers to chase them as they drove in an “extremely dangerous manner” across the city, Bowman said.
Officers monitored the progress of the teens and planned an intervention of the vehicle in the hopes they could stop the driver.
However, when the vehicle was found, the driver fled police and crashed the car soon afterwards, with the driver and the passengers running away from the scene.
Police setup cordons in the area and used the dog squad to help locate the teens, Bowman said.
Christel Yardley/Stuff
The youths are in the care of Oranga Tamariki following their arrests. (File photo)
“Three 13-year-old youths were spoken to regarding six unlawful takings of motor vehicles,” he said.
“One youth appeared in the Invercargill Youth Court and the other two were referred to Police Youth Services while, another has yet to be spoken too.
“The quick work from our staff has resulted in these high-risk offenders being identified and held to account.
“They were taken into Oranga Tamariki care.”
Bowman said the group was believed to be involved in similar offending across Southland over the past few months.
“While resolutions like this are positive, we know they are cold comfort to the people who have been targeted and have lost their vehicles or had property damaged,” he said.
“Police and Victim Support will be providing ongoing support to the victims of this offending and police are committed to identifying and apprehending those responsible.”
Bowman said he hoped the arrests would give Southlanders confidence that police were taking offending of this nature “extremely seriously” and that officers would respond, investigate and work to hold offenders to account.
Anyone who sees suspicious or criminal behaviour was urged to report it to police through 111 if it is happening at the time, or via 105 for historical offending.
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