On his way into the library earlier in the afternoon, \u014cp\u014dtiki resident Kevin Tamati had waved to the man who had been sitting at the skatepark and asked him if he was all right.<\/p>\n
The man had cheerily called out to say he was fine, Tamati said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he took refuge inside and was followed by the teenagers, it got nasty.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo of the boys who were egging the others on were chanting; there were chairs being thrown and they were saying they\u2019d kill the guy,\u201d Tamati said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them if they had an allegation to make, they should make it at the police station.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rest of the group were not so worked up. Some of them might have been along for the ride, just to see what was happening. One boy was trying to get his friends to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u014cp\u014dtiki resident Kevin Tamati called the fire brigade after angry youths burst into the \u014cp\u014dtiki Library. Photo \/ Paul Charman<\/p>\n
Tamati said library staff took the man into the kitchen and called the police. <\/p>\n
Tamati said he called the fire brigade and they arrived in a few minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the kids saw the fire engine stop outside the library on the corner of King Street and Church Street, with about six firefighters inside it, they moved outside.\u201d<\/p>\n
Curley Keno, who is standing for \u014cp\u014dtiki Mayor, works next door to the library. She said she heard a commotion and went outside to investigate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw about five young people chasing a man on a bike who went into the library,\u201d Keno said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe staff had closed the door and the youth were yelling, swearing, trying to get inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keno said she attempted to defuse the situation by getting the young people\u2019s side of the story and urging them to make a complaint to the police.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey kept saying \u2018the police will do nothing\u2019. They went to another building to calm down, but used their phones to summon reinforcements.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keno said library staff and other community members did an \u201camazing job\u201d trying to de-escalate the situation.<\/p>\n
Attempts were made to summon the police and get the rangatahi (youth) to leave.<\/p>\n
Keno said she and her colleagues from Eastbay Reap eventually persuaded the remaining young people to come next door for a cup of tea and some kai, which is where some of the teenagers eventually spoke to the police.<\/p>\n
Mayoral candidate Curley Keno was among those helping to resolve a volatile situation at the \u014cp\u014dtiki Library last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis incident will have an effect on the whole community, but it\u2019s part of an ongoing issue,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re getting complaints about the conduct of rangatahi on bikes and horses, but these are only the symptoms of something deeper.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u014cp\u014dtiki College had not responded to questions related to the incident by the \u014cp\u014dtiki News press time.<\/p>\n
What the council says<\/p>\n
\u014cp\u014dtiki District Council service delivery group manager Nathan Hughes said CCTV footage and other evidence had been handed over to the police.<\/p>\n
Hughes said while the investigation was ongoing, all the individuals involved \u2014 including their associates \u2013 had been temporarily barred from the library.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be consequences. This will be worked through with local agencies, parents and the young people involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hughes thanked members of the public \u2013 particularly a group of w\u0101hine M\u0101ori \u2013 who stepped in to support library staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were aware of the situation out in the street, came to assist the library staff while waiting for police to arrive and played a key role in calming the young people down and provided assistance by making contact with family members who could collect their children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hughes said two external doors and one internal door were damaged, with the estimated $1600 repair cost below the council\u2019s insurance excess.<\/p>\n
The library was closed for a day to allow repairs and to give staff time to recover.<\/p>\n
Despite the disruption, Hughes said library staff were not targeted and many knew the rangatahi involved.<\/p>\n
He acknowledged the event was stressful but noted that staff were more saddened than traumatised and had access to support services, including rest days.<\/p>\n
The council was reviewing building security and operational procedures to prevent similar incidents in future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On his way into the library earlier in the afternoon, \u014cp\u014dtiki resident Kevin Tamati had waved to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[542,677,682,674,680,679,681,671,296,676,685,670,111,43,139,69,675,669,683,673,672,165,684,686,678],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-access","tag-angry","tag-being","tag-building","tag-demanding","tag-forced","tag-homeless","tag-incident","tag-into","tag-investigate","tag-last","tag-library","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-police","tag-ptiki","tag-sheltered","tag-storm","tag-teens","tag-their","tag-there","tag-week","tag-youths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","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=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}