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'Reckless': Man pretending to be injured on motorway overbridge arrested (www.rnz.co.nz)

submitted 5 months ago by Dave to c/auckland

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A 57-year-old man has been arrested after pretending to be injured on the East Tāmaki overbridge on Auckland's Southern Motorway.

Emergency services were called to reports of a man who appeared injured at about 7.46am on Monday.

Police arrived to find the man "who was pretending to be injured as part of what we can only describe as reckless behaviour in an attempt to gain publicity", Inspector Danny Meade said.

Traffic was unusually heavy during peak-hour as a result.

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[–] ColonialSpore 10 points 5 months ago (3 children)

There were a few people at work today who drove past this. One woman was crying when she got to work as she thought it was real. Man had suspended himself from the bridge to look like he hanged himself. Moving to make it look like he wasn't dead yet. All this to raise awareness about suicide prevention.
How many children in cars saw this I wonder....

Suicide is a serious problem in NZ, but, there are more child friendly ways to raise awareness.

[–] bevan 5 points 5 months ago

Thanks for the real story. What an idiot.

[–] Dave 3 points 5 months ago

Holy he'll, that's so much worse than the article makes it sound like!

[–] Ilovethebomb 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I've said this before on other posts, but we are far too tolerant of people disrupting the lives of others for the sake of a cause, and it's time these types of stunts result in stiff penalties.

It's also not a good way to gain support for your cause.

[–] absGeekNZ 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I don't agree with you in general; but in cases like this I do. The point of protest is to gain attention.

Where I don't agree:
Causes that are important, and we are not making progress (or like climate change, actively going backward).

Where I do agree:
Causes like this one, we are actively going forward. Mental health and by extension suicide prevention are talked about now more than ever. This is a shit way to gain attention.

[–] Ilovethebomb 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The point of a protest should be to gain support, not awareness. If you double the number of people who are aware of your cause, but they now hate you, that's not really progress.

[–] absGeekNZ 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Agreed, but increasing awareness by 1000 fold probably balances out.

[–] Ilovethebomb 2 points 4 months ago

I've also seen the intended message lost in the noise, for example most people seem to think restore passenger rail want more commuter trains, and aren't aware that they are actually in favour of intercity rail.

Not only have they achieved nothing but pissing off tradies, but most people think they're protesting for something else entirely.