Non-fatal Shooting In Whanganui Justified

The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found a Police officer was justified in shooting a man, who was moving away from him but who he believed posed a serious and imminent threat to himself and others. The man was seriously injured but survived. While we ultimately found all the uses of force were justified, we had residual concerns with the way officers handled the situation.

Just before 4 am on 12 December 2023, two officers saw an SUV parked on the verge of the road with the bonnet up and taillights on. Three men were near the vehicle. The officers stopped to talk to the men, one of whom ran from Police and hid behind a car.

One of the officers, armed with his sponge round launcher, challenged the man to come out of hiding. As the man emerged, the officer fired a sponge round at him, as he believed the man intended to assault him.

At this point, one of the officers identified the man as a person of interest, who had existing warrants out for his arrest, had shot and driven at Police officers previously, and was likely to have access to firearms.

What followed was a prolonged struggle between the two officers and the man, which lasted about four minutes. Some of this was recorded by a witness on her mobile phone. During the struggle, officers used various types of force including the sponge round launcher, a Police dog, Taser and pepper spray, as well as physically wrestling with the man. Despite these uses of force, the officers were not successful in arresting and restraining the man, who managed to get to his feet and push past them. At this point, one of the officers shot the man with his Glock pistol, seriously wounding him.

We concluded that officers were justified in using the force that they did. However, this was a finely balanced case, and we were concerned about the use of potentially lethal force against a man moving away. Ultimately, we accepted that, after such a prolonged struggle, the officer genuinely believed that the man presented a serious danger to the officers or others if he was not apprehended and restrained.

After the shot was fired, the man was taken out to the street where other people had gathered, including the witness who had recorded part of the incident on her phone. Here, another Police officer tried to seize the phone from her, which resulted in a struggle between the two. During this struggle, an officer pepper sprayed the witness's 13-year-old son and her father, who were attempting to intervene.

We concluded that Police were justified in attempting to seize the phone, as they believed it contained footage of the officers' uses of force, which, if found to be unjustified, could be evidence of criminal offending.

We were also satisfied that the officer was justified in pepper spraying the witness's son and father because he believed they posed a risk of assault to the officer who was attempting to seize the witness's phone.

Although we found officers were justified in using the force they did, we had the following concerns:

• Firstly, we consider the officer's initial demand for the man to come out of hiding unnecessarily escalated the situation and was the catalyst of what was to follow. At that stage, Police did not know who the man was, and he was not posing any threat to them.
• Secondly, when dealing with the witness and her family, officers could have employed different tactics to de-escalate the situation, including explaining why they wanted to seize her phone and giving a warning before pepper spraying those who had approached to intervene.

Public Report