An inquiry into the force used by two police officers following an Auckland car chase in 2022 has found it to be unjustified.
The pair were following a stolen car occupied by three children in the early hours of the morning on 1 September in South Auckland.
The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) found one of the officers used violent and "excessive force," while the other officer's use of force was "unnecessary."
"The car, having been spiked, came to a stop on Great South Road in Papakura," IPCA said in a statement on Tuesday.
Two of the three children left the vehicle and lay down on the roadside.
One of the children, aged 12 at the time, claimed he was "stomped on the eye" by one officer but the IPCA said it had seen no evidence of this.
"The first officer lay on one youth, hauled him to his feet and threw him several metres," the IPCA report read.
The officers told the Authority that they feared the youths would be hit by the stolen car or passing traffic and that they used force to move them to safer positions.
The officer said: "My fear was that this person lying on the ground wasn't going to be seen because they were lying on the ground, and it was dark and [the driver] would not see them in the wing mirrors."
The report found the second officer "dragged the other youth by the hood of his sweater one to two metres."
He said his reasoning was that it was a "pretty busy main road." The officer added the child "basically said f**k you or something to that extent."
He said he "grabbed the back of his hoodie and dragged him off the road" to arrest him.
The Authority found the first officer was justified in using force to move the child, but that the manner in which he did so involved an excessive use of force, and that the force used by the second officer was unnecessary as there was no genuine risk to the youth.
"Police have accepted the second officer's use of force as being unjustified and subsequently taken employment action," the report read.
"However, police considered the first officer's actions and use of force appropriate."
