If the phrase “the war on drugs” has lost some of its impact in recent years, Police’s National Clandestine Laboratory Team has no doubt that is exactly what they are engaged in when combating the manufacture and supply of methamphetamine. By Ellen Brook
A police officer standing at a cordon by a wrecked or unstable building, on a dangerous piece of road or near a flooded plain, or being flown into disaster areas, is a reminder of how our members are the ones who must go to and remain in places of risk to protect others.
Northland police teams are under siege – gang and drug activity from outside and staffing problems from within. At least that’s the way it’s feeling to the staff and their supervisors. Ellen Brook reports.
Sergeant Jonathan Westrupp has no recollection of diving head first through the glass of a second-storey bathroom window during an armed siege in April. Moments beforehand, however, he knows he made a calculated decision that it was the best option to get away from a wanted man who had just shot and killed a police dog in the hallway of the Porirua house. Ellen Brook reports.
