A west Auckland tattoo parlour is looking worse for wear after a police patrol car crashed through its front window today.
Police spokesman Kevin Loughlin said an officer was getting out of the vehicle and pressed his foot on the accelerator instead of the brake, sending the car into the shop.
He said the vehicle was still running but the officer had applied the hand-brake.
"Nobody was injured but the police car was damaged," Mr Loughlin told The New Zealand Herald.
An internal police inquiry was under way to decide if charges would be laid.
The Te Atatu Peninsula shop's owner, Pierre Bullot, said the officer "floored it, I don't know why or how".
Mr Bullot said the crash had damaged couches, a television, computers, carvings and tattoo equipment and he might have to shut the store because he did not have insurance.
"They took the car out and just left us with a destroyed business."
The situation was made worse, Mr Bullot said, when officers drove past this afternoon laughing at the damage.
He said police told him he could replace equipment and send them the receipts, but there was no guarantee that they would pay.
