The tree was adorned with rocks painted by local schoolchildren, with trinkets including sentimental toys, a candle, flowers, artificial plants and a photograph. Fairy lights were strung in the tree at Christmas time and had remained there until this week.<\/p>\n
Shara-Lee said the damage appeared to have happened in the early hours of the morning and everything had been removed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey even ripped out the lights and left them hanging.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no view worth any amount that justifies this kind of behaviour. This level of entitlement is incredibly disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n
When RNZ visited Arkles Bay on Friday, there was no sign left of the memorial.<\/p>\n
While most of the items could be replaced, Shara-Lee said sentimental items had been taken during the first incident, including a photo of her son and a small toy rubbish truck.<\/p>\n
She hoped those items could be returned to the tree.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hate to think a local would do this. We are a small community, but I don\u2019t get it …<\/p>\n
\u201cThings that were clearly put there with love have not been returned. Why do they have my son\u2019s stuff? It has no value to them. Either things have been destroyed, removed or put in the bin … it doesn\u2019t make sense to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shara-Lee said she and other community members had reported the incidents to police on multiple occasions, with the most recent incident happening on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
So far, she said she had not heard back from police.<\/p>\n
She said she tried speaking to neighbours but nobody had seen what happened.<\/p>\n
Senior Sergeant Carl Fowlie from Waitemat\u0101 North Police confirmed a report had been made in relation to the tree.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are continuing to make inquiries into the report,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Auckland Council staff and contractors were not responsible for the damage or removal of any of the items, the council\u2019s Hibiscus and Bays & Upper Harbour area operations manager Sandra May said.<\/p>\n
There had also been no formal approval from council for the temporary memorial, she said.<\/p>\n
Some members of the community were against the memorial, Shara-Lee said, as they thought it was turning the beach into a \u201cshrine\u201d or cemetery for her son.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never ever said it\u2019s a shrine to my son, this is about community. The community want somewhere to sit and reflect on their own situations because so many people have faced things.<\/p>\n
\u201cGenerally, people greet each other and talk at the tree, and it\u2019s connected people through loss.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shara-Lee was in the process of trying to get a permanent memorial plaque or bench at the beach in memory of her son and planned to hand a petition to the council next week.<\/p>\n
For now, she said she was unsure what to do next about the tree because she was exhausted dealing with the emotions the damage brought up.<\/p>\n
Following her son\u2019s death, Shara-Lee also started a Facebook page called \u201cWhat happens after\u201d, which she had used to blog about her son\u2019s life and share her own experiences dealing with grief and loss.<\/p>\n
Since starting the page, she said she had received many messages from people who had recently lost someone and ended up talking to someone else in a similar situation at the tree after walking along Arkles Bay beach.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s for the community, but it can be in Tyler\u2019s honour.\u201d<\/p>\n
– RNZ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tree was adorned with rocks painted by local schoolchildren, with trinkets including sentimental toys, a candle, flowers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[205143,1975,3952,1561,17153,4731,6179,25021,2082,78,5158,25020,19872,111,43,139,37968,69,4730,2044,1299],"class_list":["post-397030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-arkles","tag-at","tag-aucklands","tag-bay","tag-damaged","tag-days","tag-died","tag-earley","tag-for","tag-in","tag-man","tag-melanie","tag-memorial","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nine","tag-nz","tag-sixth","tag-time","tag-who"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397030","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=397030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}