Police pleased with response to Auckland's biggest event

Auckland Police say they are pleased with the way Policing of last nights opening events of Rugby World Cup 2011 has gone.

Assistant Commissioner Allan Boreham says Police arrested 64 people in the city between 5pm Friday and 7am Saturday - mainly for disorder and drunkenness. Police made only one arrest and evicted 14 from Eden Park venue for low-level offences.

"This number of arrests is comparable to a very busy Friday night in the city, and indicates that overall people in the city for the event were generally well behaved.

"We had a significant number of staff available throughout the night and I am incredibly proud of the way they did their job. They responded really well to the challenges of policing such a large number of people. At its peak there were more than 500 staff deployed for the event.

"There were around 200,000 people in town for the event launch, and the scale of the event was unprecedented for us. However we had planned well and were able to respond to the challenge," said Mr Boreham.

ENDS

© Scoop Media