Yet, despite it all, it faces headwinds with a top-shelf community spirit.<\/p>\n
Even from afar, that\u2019s observable.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s why the body-blow cancellation of its crowd-pleasing charity boxing gig cut so deep.<\/p>\n
Wairoa Boxing Club had planned to hold the Fight for Life, involving 21 fighters, but police declined its permit after deciding the event, which was to have been attended by both Black Power and Mongrel Mob supporters, posed safety concerns to the public.<\/p>\n
So, evidently, it\u2019s not just violence that affects this pretty riverside town \u2014 it\u2019s the spectre of violence.<\/p>\n
The club was \u201cgutted\u201d for tamariki as the event was raising money for free boxing lessons for local youth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re only a small club and we have lost thousands of dollars on non-refundable deposits we have already paid for the event, which is heartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n
The club said it was feeling \u201cgutted\u201d and \u201cpretty p***ed off\u201d that the actions of \u201ca small group of others (who are not even related to the boxing club in any way) means we can\u2019t have a community event for a good cause\u201d.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a cruel irony that a club which no doubt helps to keep young men on the right path and out of gangs, has been shafted by gangs.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also an irony that the young gang members are the swiftest to offend. <\/p>\n
Gang historian and academic Dr Jarrod Gilbert alluded to this when commenting on gang conflict in 2020. \u201cWhen you get younger people coming through the gangs, they are quicker to violence,\u201d he said. \u201cThat can lead to a quicker response to the trigger. When you\u2019re younger, you just don\u2019t understand the rules or how the scene managed to exist in peace for long periods \u2014 which is by abiding to certain unwritten rules about turf and territory.\u201d<\/p>\n
This begs a question \u2014 why aren\u2019t gang leaders keeping their young members in line? <\/p>\n
There\u2019s little doubt that had gang seniors of the blue and red corners been emphatic with their members, each other and police that no violence would occur, then the event would have been smooth sailing.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve seen this kaupapa work well in the past.<\/p>\n
The cancellation of fight night was a failure of senior gang members to elicit an edict on their charges to cool it.<\/p>\n
Managers in any other organisation who let their subordinates run amok would be sacked.<\/p>\n
Wairoa, which is in its own fight for life, has been let down by gang leaders\u2019 lack of leadership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yet, despite it all, it faces headwinds with a top-shelf community spirit. Even from afar, that\u2019s observable. It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[1203,703,141732,49,48,1050,7603,23645,141731,1138,693,126842,139,10400,82,141730],"class_list":["post-318847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-and","tag-boxing","tag-boxings","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-community","tag-editorial","tag-facts","tag-fails","tag-fight","tag-for","tag-gang","tag-leadership","tag-life","tag-sports","tag-wairoas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}