{"id":450773,"date":"2026-05-29T08:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T08:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/450773\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T08:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T08:13:12","slug":"long-leg-of-the-law-fleeing-suspect-run-down-by-sprinting-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/450773\/","title":{"rendered":"Long leg of the law: Fleeing suspect run down by sprinting officer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  [&amp;_p]:tit-sub-xl tit-sub-xl md:[&amp;_p]:d-tit-sub-xl md:d-tit-sub-xl mb-[1.3rem]\">A man has been apprehended by a plainclothes officer after being chased down on foot at a West Auckland shopping centre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">New Lynn Police Station officer-in-charge Sergeant Samantha Cox said police were alerted after security spotted the man returning to a store and allegedly attempting to shoplift.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">\u201cThe officer approached the man and instructed him to wait for uniformed officers, but the suspect fled the store.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/the-man-was-pursued-by-a-plainclothes-police-officer-in-the-3YLZNZVQMBHOTPFPV3ICQZNAHA.jpg\" alt=\"The man was pursued by a plainclothes police officer in the West Auckland car park. \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" loading=\"eager\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"ImageMetadata__MetadataParagraph-sc-hi5x8q-0 cWTYyG image-metadata\">The man was pursued by a plainclothes police officer in the West Auckland car park.  (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">The policeman then chased the accused thief through the mall and into the carpark before catching him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Footage showed the officer changing from his plain woollen hat to a police issue cap while holding the suspect down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Cox said quick identification allowed the man to be swiftly apprehended, and she emphasised the importance of catching shoplifters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">\u201cThis type of offending, no matter the scale, has a negative impact on our local businesses.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has been apprehended by a plainclothes officer after being chased down on foot at a West&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-450773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-auckland","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450773","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=450773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}