By Adam Ray / 3news.co.nz staff
Police are astounded at the behaviour of an
offender who showed more concern for the meat pie he was eating than the man
he'd allegedly just stabbed.
.
A 3 News camera was rolling as the man pleaded with officers to let him finish eating his meat pie before he was cuffed.
The bizarre incident followed a fight between the man and his stepson.
Police were just starting their scene inquiry when the very man they were looking for came walking towards them. They cautiously approached, and warned him to drop his hands, but there was one thing he wouldn't drop – his pie.
"It's only a pie," the man told police.
The man, accused of stabbing his stepson in the neck, seemed disappointed when police told him the victim was still alive.
"Did he die?" he asked repeatedly.
Police told him his alleged victim was still alive.
"Oh ****," the man replied. "Waste of ******* time, wasn't it?"
He was more concerned about the welfare of his meat pie than of his stepson.
"I hoped it was murder myself," he told police, who began to lead the man away. "Don't be rough. Can we pick up my pie please? Oh come on! I came back to you guys."
The accused tried to make a deal - the rest of the pie as reward for handing himself in.
"This, does it make you feel tough? My pie's sitting on the ground. I just paid for that. I came back here to you guys."
Today's incident is not the first involving police and pies. An infamous late-night exchange between an officer and a youth about the need to "blow on the pie" before eating it became a YouTube hit last year.
Police involved in today's arrest said they are always on the alert for unexpected behaviour.
"Stranger things have happened," says Det Sgt Len Leleni. "You get all kinds of interesting characters in this job."
It is believed two men - a man and his stepson - began fighting about 6am. Police say both had probably been drinking.
"Six o'clock in the morning suggests they've been out most of the night and things have come to a head," says Mr Leleni. "A 25-year-old man had received stab injuries and defence wounds… was bleeding quite a bit."
The victim is now recovering in Middlemore Hospital in a serious but stable condition. His alleged attacker was this afternoon charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and will appear in court tomorrow.
3 News