Editorial: Remarkable grace in tragic case

In situations with guns there's a fine line between acting on instincts vs. training.

On Tuesday, I spent time at the coroner's inquest into the police shooting of Lachan Kelly-Tumarae.

This is a sad, compelling narrative.

The officer involved, "Officer Six", had already been cleared criminally and was found to be justified in his actions by an Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) investigation.

At 2am on March 28, 2011, 14 rounds were fired from the officer's Glock - four found their target.

For firing his weapon, the officer paid an enormous price; for presenting his shotgun, Lachan, 19, paid the ultimate price. About three weeks later, I overheard a senior Napier police officer speaking on the incident. In such stand-offs, he said, police were trained to "empty the clip". During the inquest, Coroner Peter Ryan said he was concerned Officer Six had forgone his training and instead acted instinctively. If the empty clip protocol is accurate, you could argue it was, in fact, the other way around.

Whether this mantra endures at police college today is unknown. Yet while it's a disturbing rule of engagement, a firearm isn't used to incapacitate. Its design is a terminal one.

As is often the case with the social architecture of a courtroom, the public gallery on Tuesday was divided in two: the Tumarae whanau on one side - the state on the other.

It would have been as black and white as that if it hadn't been for Lachan's grandmother, Narina Tumarae. Her grace, non-judgmental and conciliatory poise under questioning, was utterly remarkable.

Whether one thinks she underestimated her mokopuna's gang links is immaterial. Her unwavering faith in humanity was the only aspect of this saga that makes sense.