A Rotorua mum is calling for the police to better alert people when they're carrying out drills after she saw what she thought was police chasing a gunman around a school.
Police carried out a display at Rotorua Boys' High School on Friday but it worried residents nearby, who saw the action posted on Facebook as the drama unfolded. The posts caused some panic and a local kohanga reo to go into lockdown.
Katrina Heywood said the community should have been better informed of the drill. She was working in Wellington when she saw a friend's Facebook post that said police were chasing a gunman around the school.
"All people could see across the road was a gunman running around. I had friends freaking out and totally terrified."
She panicked as her son goes to kohanga across the road at Pipiwharauroa Kohanga Reo, on Mataatua St.
Ms Heywood said she rang her son's kohanga, which went into lockdown, and was worried about her son's well-being.
"The neighbours had no pre-warning and it went viral big time. People were freaking out, especially parents of kids."
Ms Heywood said she was in the army and when they carried out exercises they had to inform people around the area of what they were doing.
"Maybe they should have spoken to the community ... it was just totally wrong."
A teacher at Pipiwharauroa Kohanga Reo said they had tried to call police but got no answer but found out it was an exercise by calling Rotorua Boys' High School.
"It would have been nice if we had been called," said Paere Hunuhunu.
"We wouldn't have needed to panic. We went into lockdown, closed the curtains so the kids couldn't look out."
Rotorua police acting area commander Inspector Tim Anderson said police carried out exercises at schools regularly and it would be counter-intuitive to "do a leaflet drop" each time it had one planned.
"It was fairly well advertised in the school," Mr Anderson said.
"They would have seen a police dog and other police there. It was all done in a controlled manner. We do these displays all the time but if anyone has any concerns when they see something like this they should call 111. If we had to do a leaflet drop for each school exhibition then we probably wouldn't organise them."