‘I had to help those kids’

Press, 17 April 1982, Page 6

‘I had to help those kids’

PA Auckland .Mrs Kathy Ranui, the detached social worker -who helped defuse the tense police-gang confrontation in Tauranga on Thursday night, said yesterday that she had not been afraid — just concerned to assist gang members who had asked her for help. “I wasn’t afraid at a 11... I just .knew what I had to do and went ahead. I felt I just had to help those kids when they had masked for my help

'/•Mrs ■ Ranui has? .worked closely with local- Black Power and -Mongrel Mob members in the almost two years she has held the job. Her husband has been a Maori warden for eight months.

The wife of one of the gang members barricaded in the house got in touch with Mr Ranui about 12.30 a.m. yesterday morning, and he reached his .wife at a neighbour’s tangi. “I went straight to the place but couldn’t get through the cordon. I just didn’t realise it would be like that — I’ve never been in such a heavy situation, before,” Mrs Ranui said. Unable to get through the cordon, she went to. the Tauranga police station, and spoke tb senior officers there. ..“I then went back to my home, spoke to my husband, and telephoned the boys, at the house to let them know I was trying to get through.” She and her ..husband went back to the house under siege

but they were not allowed to go straight into it. “The police were very cautious and insisted on giving us protection. We went through;one cordon and then another- in what seemed a very long time. “I knew these boys and I knew I would be all right. I wasn’t really worried about my own safety and couldn’t understand why the police were being so cautious.

“I started to get' pretty agitated because it took so long before we even got near the house. We were given an armed escort as the police led us through another barricade they, had made with bulldozers on the road.” Mrs Ranui said that once inside the house she found the gang , members quite calm and pleased to see

them. They handed over one firearm immediately and her husband took it out of tne house.

They sat about “for what seemed like hours” talking and then a policeman was allowed into the house to talk to the men. who later left “quietly and without any trouble” with him.

Mrs Ranui said she preferred to work on her own and did not work closely with her husband.

“We don’t talk shop at home. I feel I have to keep my loyalty to the boys I am dealing with.” The couple have nine children and one foster child who are. “all grown up.”

The Police Association said yesterday/ that further violence similar to the gang attack on the police in Tau-

ranga on Thursday night could be expected unless both front line and community police numbers were boosted. The association's research officer. Mr Graham Butterworth, said the Tauranga attack on the police was part of the steadily declining pattern of youth behaviour. “We are going to see more and more of this sort of thing unless the Government moves,” Mr Butterworth said. He said the association, wanted approval for at least 400 more police — half of them to work in the community on preventive work. The police were only trying to hold the lid on a volatile situation. A policy of “bashing the bashers” was not one that would work. Mr Butterworth said.