Police say there are enough staff in Wellington to service the city in response to reports of crime, despite a resident telling 1News police could not help him find his stolen van because they were deployed to the anti-mandate protest on Parliament grounds.
Sean Hogan told 1News his van went missing on Sunday morning.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Hogan said "police can't investigate my stolen van, despite me pointing them to CCTV".
Hogan says police told him in an email "we are aware of all the cameras on Tory Street but we have no capacity to collect any at this stage as all our staff are deployed to Parliament, unfortunately".
However, in a statement to 1News late on Wednesday, police said they "have a large number of staff from Wellington District and from across the country deployed to policing the protest activity at Parliament.
"Wellington police continue to have staff servicing the city and responding to reports of crime that are not related to the protest.
"As with any calls for service these are assessed and responded to, with immediate threats to life taking priority," the statement said.
Read more: Police staff working at Parliament protest contracted Covid
Hogan said the van was found by a member of the public on the road in Karori on Tuesday but it was "completely stripped internally".
"Police emailed me today [Wednesday] to confirm they weren’t progressing the investigation as they couldn’t find any forensic evidence to help," Hogan said.
Late on Wednesday night, additional police arrived at the protest after a concrete bollard was moved by members of the occupation to let more vehicles onto the site.
Shortly afterwards, police arrived at the scene attempting to form a human chain to block any more vehicles from coming in and keep protesters back.
It comes as the protest enters its 17th day occupying grounds at Parliament on Thursday.
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