Devonports wild day of stolen cars, a police standoff and school locks

• In the span of a few hours, two separate incidents on Auckland’s north coast saw cars stolen, schools locked and police in an armed standoff near an empty house.
• Police spent 90 minutes in a stalemate in an empty property, unaware that a man who reported having a firearm had driven off on an electric scooter.
• Five schools in the North Shore were locked for nearly an hour.
• In a separate incident, three cars were stolen, including one with a police officer in it.

On Thursday morning, in Devonport, an upscale suburb on Auckland’s north coast, a woman and her daughter were nearly hit by a car fleeing police.

The driver was later arrested “by force”. Three cars were stolen – at one point a police officer, trying to arrest, became an unexpected passenger.

The car, with the officer in it, then came to a stop against a house.

Meanwhile, just down the road in Belmont, four schools closed after reports of a nearby firearms incident. Shortly afterwards, armed officers surrounded a house and shouted “we know you’re there” into a megaphone.

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This is how the two unrelated incidents unfolded.

stolen cars

Three vehicles were stolen on Thursday morning, including one with a police officer in it.

Inspector Stefan Sagar, Waitematā East Area Commander, said police responded shortly before 9:00 am to reports of a man behaving suspiciously at a commercial building in Hauraki.

They found the man and approached him – but the man fled in a car.

A Devonport resident Kimberly Graham said she and her daughter were on their way to a medical appointment at 9:15 am when they noticed they were being chased by a car near Takapuna Grammar School.

The car was chased by the police.

“I had to quickly get out of the way of the car they were chasing,” said Graham.

“After they passed, I looked in the rear-view mirror to see the runaway car speeding across the centerline of Lake Rd, after which the police car broke off the chase.”

Sagar said that at one point a police officer jumped into the man’s car in an attempt to arrest him, but the man drove off with the officer in the car.

The car collided with a number of parked vehicles, before crashing into a house with the police officer inside.

A witness on Dominion St said they heard a loud bang outside their home around 9:45 am.

When they went outside to investigate, they saw that a car had collided with a parked car and a man entered a nearby house.

The man “broke” the side gate of the house, according to the witness who asked not to be named, and ran into the yard before going back to the road and trying to break into another house.

The witness also said other cars along and near Dominion St had crashed or had scratch damage as a result of the chase.

Sagar said the man continued to try to evade police and that “violence was needed” to bring the incident to an end.

The arrested man was taken to hospital for observation.

The police officer in the car was not injured during the incident.

Firearms report and a police standoff

Shortly after the cars were stolen, reports of someone holding a gun led to an armed police crackdown in the Belmont-Devonport area and closures of nearby schools.

Police said they reported an armed man in Belmont at 10:47 a.m. Thursday — a local resident was later told by police that the incident started after a car sale went wrong.

The Ministry of Education was notified of the firearms reports and four schools were locked up “as a precaution”.

The schools affected were Belmont Intermediate, Bayswater School, Takapuna Grammar, Belmont Primary. Another school 3 miles away, Northcote Intermediate, was also locked on Thursday morning.

The schools were locked for about 40 minutes.

A resident of Bardia St, Belmont, said police began arriving at the street at about 10:30 a.m.

At 12:30 p.m., police surrounded a house on the street. Cops leaned on their cars with their guns at the ready.

A woman driving through Bardia St was stopped by police and said, “Get out of the car and run, there’s a gun,” she said.

“Things like this don’t happen here.”

Meanwhile, police yelled at the resident of the Bardia St.

“We know you’re in, now come to the front door with your hands up,” they said. “We’re not leaving.”

Ninety minutes later, 10 armed officers with dogs walked along the side of the house. Then it was discovered that the man was never in the house and at 2:30 p.m. the police barriers were lifted.

stuff later learned from a neighbor that the man had left the house shortly before the police arrived and set out on an electric scooter.

Police said in a statement there was no immediate threat to the public in relation to the incident.

“No arrests have been made at this stage.”

Three hours later, the police had left the Bardia St. However, a stuff According to a photographer at the scene, a man entered the house around 5 p.m.

He left the property with a duffel bag and jumped into a car. The photographer said the man “wasn’t running” and that he didn’t appear to be in a hurry.