Police team’s future hazy

Press, 22 January 1982, Page 4

Police team’s future hazy

PA Auckland The future of the Auckland team policing unit, which formed the basis of the controversial Red Squad, is uncertain: nine of the team’s 32 members will be transferred to other police duties next month.

The Deputy Commissioner of Police Mr K. 0. Thompson. confirmed last evening that the moves will be made. He said the future of the team would be discussed at a high level and that the result of these discussions would be apparent "in the not-too-dis-tant future." He would not elaborate.

Inquiries by the “New Zealand Herald" last evening showed that members of the team do not know who will be transferred or where they will be transferred to.

They fear that the proposed transfers are a reaction to the Red Squad’s involvement in the clowns case. Members of the squad allegedly beat and kicked three clowns, two men and a

woman, on the Dominion Road footpath on the day of the Springbok third rugby test.

Auckland police investigators have been unable to' identify the policemen who were dressed in riot gear at the time who are alleged to have struck the clowns with batons.

Members of the team policing unit said they feared that their jobs were on the line in a backlash of the police’s internal inquiry into the incident’s having so far drawn a blank. The head of the Auckland police, Assistant Commissioner E. J. Trappitt. said late last evening that it had only recently been discovered that nine of the team’s members had been in the unit longer than the recommended term. This had been found out only since the Springbok tour. The nine men who would be transferred were the most senior in the Auckland unit. The transfers had nothing to do with the Springbok tour.