Cops take suspected explosive into police station – then call NZSAS bomb experts for help

• Police unwittingly took a suspected explosive device inside a police station after seizing it from a suspect.
• NZDF advice was to keep people clear ahead of the bomb squad arriving.
• The 29-year-old man involved was also found with two firearms and now faces charges.

A suspected explosive device was accidentally taken inside Hamilton’s central police station after armed officers arrested a man found with two firearms and ammunition.

It led to police calling for military explosives experts based with the elite NZ Special Air Service for help, even as a buffer zone was created around the suspected explosive.

The drama unfolded in Hamilton yesterday afternoon after reports that a man was seen with a firearm leaving Massey St in the city.

A police response to the calls led to the vehicle in which the man was travelling being spotted and then watched, before armed police carried out a traffic stop on Cambridge Rd - about 20 minutes' drive from Massey St.

Having stopped the car, police searched it and found two firearms with ammunition and arrested the 29-year-old who was driving.

The arrest took a troubling turn for police when they returned to Hamilton Central Police Station, where “staff located an item of concern among the man’s property”, a police statement said.

Police said advice from NZ Defence Force experts was to “secure the item away from police staff and any public areas of the station”.

Police did so, and the NZDF Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team – known as E Squadron of the NZSAS – travelled to the police station and “made the item safe”.

The police statement said the man faced multiple charges at the Hamilton District Court today and was remanded to appear again on February 11.

E Squadron came to national prominence when members of the unit landed on Whakaari White Island in 2019 after an eruption killed 22 people and injured another 25.

Fully operational since 2005, E Squadron was the Government’s response to chemical, biological, radiological and explosive incidents in New Zealand.

In the past 10 years, it has carried out more than 1000 missions in support of police and other government agencies. It has also helped remove unexploded ordnance across the Pacific.

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