Rise in armed incidents 'remarkable'

Police Association president Greg O'Connor.

Police throughout New Zealand have faced armed offenders more than 60 times since the start of last month, according to reports being collated by the Police Association.

The "remarkable" increase in the rate of incidents was revealed to Hawke's Bay Today by association president Greg O'Connor after Monday night's shooting in Clive.

It was at least the fourth time offenders have been shot by police in Hawke's Bay in the last four and a half years. While not all of those shot had been armed, Mr O'Connor said the police Eastern District did "seem" to have a higher number of incidents.

He said that nationally reports of offenders in possession of firearms are happening "on a daily basis," and there were possibly more than the association was being told about.

The association has had a major beef with its commissioner and with Government about people's access to firearms in New Zealand, with about 1.1 million firearms estimated to be in private hands throughout the country, although Mr O'Connor said "Nobody knows. It's just a guess".

"I'm flummoxed," he said. "We've just had our annual conference last week, and everyone left shaking their heads."

"Here are the minister and the commissioner both saying there are no issues with firearms. Nothing's being done, but it didn't take long to deal with it when a television reporter bought a firearm last week."

"Now, here we have police officers apparently shot at again," he said. "It is very fortunate that there is only one homicide inquiry going on."

"These are not just one-off incidents, there has been a remarkable increase, so how many more of these incidents is it going to take before they acknowledge that there is a problem," he said.

"To do anything about the problem you do have to acknowledge first that there is a problem."

He was also alarmed that last night the incident - "a homicide, shooting at police and someone is shot" - rated no better than fourth in headlines on TV news, and he said: "There you're getting into your American standards - just another shooting?"

There have been at least six incidents where offenders have been shot by police in Hawke's Bay, at least five where police have been shot by offenders, most notably the shooting of three officers by cannabis grower Jan Molenaar in Napier in 2009.