Police decry 'evil' element at recent boy racer gatherings

A police inspector says there was an "evil" group among the hundreds gathered at a boy racer event in Waikato over the weekend.

The large crowd "became increasingly hostile" towards officers, a police spokesperson said yesterday, with four police vehicles rammed and damaged: "Officers were put at serious risk due to the violent behaviour of many of those involved."

Inspector Neil Faulkner told Breakfast this morning that members of the public had come forward with information and police are "following positive lines of enquiry". There were people at the event for different reasons as well, he continued.

"We have the illegal street racing component, where they want to do skids in the intersections.

"We have a group of supporters which — to be fair — is the majority of people that follow this around.

"And then what we've seen, which is more concerning for police, is the organised criminal element that's coming into it. They're looking for any opportunity to cause maximum harm where they can, which is actually really concerning."

Faulkner said this group don't care about the consequences of their actions – to themselves or to anybody else.

"They're just having a go where they can," he said. "I'd describe that environment as quite evil. Their faces are all covered so they've obviously got this intent to go out there and just cause maximum damage without being held to account."

He later said police have seen this element at other events as well.

"We've had previous of these types of meet-ups... The level of violence is high.

"Hostile, evil, it's really hard to describe.

"It's very opportunistic, they're just coming out and trying to cause maximum harm."

Faulkner said there were about 1000 people there at the gathering's peak, when it was in Cambridge.

"Then it moved forward through the district and people came and went, but it was consistently between 500 and 1000 people."

One incident particularly troubled police; a ute allegedly reversing at speed towards a police car that officers were standing in front of.

Yesterday's statement included photographs of the ute and two people at a petrol station before the gathering.

"We're still looking for the vehicle that's involved," Faulkner said. "However, we have spoken to the people in that release and they're helping us with our enquiries."

Detective Sergeant Matt Lee confirmed the two people pictured with the white ute "were not involved in the events of Sunday morning".

"We have established that the ute was stolen in July and is currently bearing false licence plates," Lee said.

Police would like to hear from anyone who has information about the occupants of the ute on Sunday morning, or the ute's current whereabouts."

"Historically, we've always had a problem with what we used to call illegal street racing, or boy racers if you will," Faulkner said.

"They were predominantly car enthusiasts.

"They would meet up at a common place, look at each other's cars, drive around in a convoy, causing a little bit of disruption to the public, the odd skid at the intersection – then, by the end of the night, they'd disperse and go home."

Police would break those convoys up by enforcing warrant of fitness standards.

"The tactics around that was pretty much to disrupt them," Faulkner said. "A lot of their cars weren't up to warrant of fitness standard, and then obviously we'd look to seize vehicles and previously we've looked at getting them destroyed as well."

But the incident over the weekend was different, he explained.

"The difference between that and what we're seeing now with these so-called advertised invasions is the numbers have changed, so significantly more numbers [and] it's a lot more coordinated, a lot of planning going into it," he said.

Faulkner later added: "That environment's completely changed."