THE LAST TIME IT HAPPENED

Yesterday's police shooting of an armed woman who took a man hostage is the second time Whangarei police have had to shoot a person dead in the city.
The last time was on November 20, 1995, when Barry Ronald Radcliffe, aged 37, grabbed a rifle from McCoy and Thomas Sports hunting and fishing shop in Rust Ave and loaded it with ammunition he had brought with him.
The one-time psychiatric patient walked out of the store with the loaded gun and was shot as he walked towards police, ignoring repeated calls to put the gun down. Radcliffe died hours later in Whangarei Hospital. A Police Complaints Authority inquiry, launched immediately after the shooting, cleared police of any wrongdoing.