‘It was ridiculous’: Family outraged at being mistakenly detained in shooter search

A Dunedin man is fuming after his family was wrongly detained by the armed offenders squad searching for a car believed to be involved in a drive-by shooting.

Police yesterday confirmed a shotgun was fired at a vehicle in Thomas Burns St, sparking an extensive callout by armed police.

Paul Broderick, of Ocean View, said he and his family were sitting out the back of their Brighton Rd house on Friday.

He had just got home and had noticed a heavy police presence in the area, but he was surprised to find himself at the centre — with six guns pointed at his head — when the armed offenders squad swooped in about 6.05pm.

Over the next 40 minutes, the armed police refused to listen to his family or explain what was going on, until two detectives showed up, he said.

Then they were able to explain they had done nothing wrong, and the silver BMW which police were looking for had pulled up in their driveway and stayed for about 30 seconds.

The driver got out and appeared to inspect the passenger-side door before driving away towards Dunedin, the same direction he had come from.

The detectives immediately stood down the armed offenders squad, Broderick said.

When he initially tried to explain the situation, officers had not wanted to know about it.

“They were too busy running around like f...... idiots with guns ... to me, it was ridiculous. We’d done nothing wrong,” Broderick said.

The raid had stigmatised them and rumours had been swirling that they were crackheads, which was utterly untrue.

“They made us walk down to the front of our property with our hands up — it’s like, ‘mate, I’m wearing board shorts and a T-shirt. Does it really look like I’m concealing a weapon?’.”

His family had nothing to do with the shooting and the wanted car could have pulled up in anyone’s driveway, Broderick said.

While he understood that police had a job to do, he was not impressed with their conduct, saying that his family had been treated like animals.

Officers mentioned that a “police colleague” had apparently called in the incident, he said.

Police have been approached for comment about the raid, but did not respond by deadline.

The silver BMW is understood to have been wanted in connection with an apparent drive-by shooting in central Dunedin earlier that afternoon.

Senior Sergeant Anthony Bond, of Dunedin, said officers responded to several reports of a loud bang in Thomas Burns St about 4.40pm.

The victim had been in a car, stopped at the lights near the pedestrian overbridge.

A vehicle driving past saw it, turned around and a passenger fired a shot, Bond said.

The victim fled the scene and was left uninjured, but shaken.

Damage to the bonnet of the victim’s car suggested it had been hit by a shotgun blast.

Officers were following lines of inquiry and there was no evidence the incident was gang-related, Bond said.

There were 117 armed offender callouts in the Southern police district in 2022, a 216 per cent increase on five years earlier.

AOS callouts have risen in all police districts on five years ago, according to figures obtained by National police spokesman Mark Mitchell via written parliamentary questions.