Police tractor draws the curious
A tractor is helping the police to bridge the gap with farmers seeking advice
The police tractor at Fieldays is a good tool for police officers to start conversations about crime prevention.
The bright blue and yellow New Holland tractor attracts visitors and helps as a bridge to a chat between policeman and farmers needing advice.
Te Awamutu Sergeant Michael Henwood said it’s a good opportunity for police to be out at Fieldays, as opposed to being in a police car driving around rural areas.
“For people from rural areas this might be an only opportunity once a year they get to talk to someone from the police, even just to say ‘hi’ or ask specific questions that they have.”
Henwood said the tractor gets a mixture of comments from passers-by.
“It varies from ‘hard case’ and ‘quite funny’ to ‘who do you pull over with this?’,” he said.
Some people assume that police budget has been spent on the tractor, but it cost the police nothing.
“The tractor has basically been donated by the tractor company New Holland to us,” Henwood said.
Police at the site joked that the tractor is regularly driven on streets of Auckland. But it is actually only used for displaying at Fieldays and other expos and has never been used on the job.
Police staff from all over the Waikato are working at Fieldays.
There are 12 police stuff on site keeping Mystery Creek secure and 31 are within the Waikato region, controlling the traffic.
Sergeant Gordon Grantham said the past few days have been quiet with no major incidents.
“Minor thefts would be the main thing we have dealt with.”
