Two men have been arrested and multiple vehicles seized after up to seven vehicles performed burnouts during a funeral at Auckland’s Waikumete Cemetery on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Police were called to the cemetery around 2pm following multiple reports of dangerous driving.<\/p>\n
Waitemat\u0101 West area commander Inspector Simon Walker said one attendee began doing burnouts directly in front of the crematorium.<\/p>\n
“The first police unit on scene was surrounded by some attendees, including individuals who jumped on the patrol vehicle,” Walker said. No officers or bystanders were injured.<\/p>\n
Auckland Council said at one stage, up to seven vehicles were doing burnouts in front of a large crowd.<\/p>\n
Additional units, including the Eagle helicopter, were deployed to assist. Police impounded two cars and a motorbike, and are continuing to investigate.<\/p>\n
A 52-year-old man was arrested and charged with failing to stop. He will appear in the Wait\u0101kere District Court at a later date. A 22-year-old man handed himself in to Henderson Police Station later that day. His vehicle was impounded and he was charged with sustained loss of traction.<\/p>\n
Police were working to identify a third driver involved.<\/p>\n
Walker said the behaviour was “quite disappointing” and showed a lack of respect.<\/p>\n
“They frankly have no respect for others or the cemetery, which is a place reserved for remembrance,” he said. “Doing burnouts is not a sign of respect and we will continue to hold offenders to account.”<\/p>\n
“There is no place for this senseless behaviour in our community, and we will be looking to lay charges against all those involved.”<\/p>\n
Auckland Council cemetery services manager Nikki Nelson said it was “extremely disappointing” when people did not respect cemeteries and other visitors to them.<\/p>\n
“People of all ages and backgrounds gather at Waikumete Cemetery for important reasons and it is of paramount importance to us that the safety of every visitor is prioritised.<\/p>\n
“We are hugely relieved that no one got seriously injured as a result of the dangerous driving that took place.”<\/p>\n
A woman who witnessed the burnouts told 1News the behaviour was “disgusting”.<\/p>\n
“You think it looks cool, you have no respect for anyone. No brains between the lot of you.”<\/p>\n
She added that the group involved had used oil to fuel the burnouts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two men have been arrested and multiple vehicles seized after up to seven vehicles performed burnouts during a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,67,111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-116797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-auckland","9":"tag-crime-and-justice","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}