{"id":38959,"date":"2025-09-23T14:59:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T14:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/38959\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T14:59:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T14:59:18","slug":"sunlive-armed-police-block-road-in-dawn-wbop-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/38959\/","title":{"rendered":"SunLive &#8211; Armed police block road in dawn WBOP operation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Residents of Whakamarama were in the dark this morning after the Armed Offenders Squad locked down Barrett Rd for over two hours in what appears to have been a serious police operation.<\/p>\n<p>One local reported seeing armed officers blocking both ends of Barrett Rd from around 5am, with the road remaining closed until around 7.15am.<\/p>\n<p>The woman, who did not want to be named, said the entry and exit points were blocked off, forcing people to detour via Old Highway Rd.<\/p>\n<p>She described a heavy police presence, with officers visibly armed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey wouldn\u2019t tell the public why or when it would be open,\u201d said one resident.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/250923-Amred-2.jpg\" style=\"width: 100%;\"\/>Police at the scene of an operation in Whakamarama. Photo \/ David Hall<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was definitely something serious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The woman said it was \u201ckind of frightening\u201d to see.<\/p>\n<p>A police spokesperson said the police presence is in relation to a pre-planned search warrant and that officers remain in the area this morning.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/250923-Amred-3.jpg\" style=\"width: 100%;\"\/>An officer taking photo as part of a police operation in Whakamarama. Photo \/ David Hall<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t have any further information at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents of Whakamarama were in the dark this morning after the Armed Offenders Squad locked down Barrett Rd&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-38959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38959","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=38959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}