‘Only if life at risk’

Press, 13 February 1986, Page 21

‘Only if life at risk’

The New Zealand police have shot and killed eight men since 1941. Three of the eight shootings were in the South Island. Those killed were Eric Stanley Graham who died of wounds in hospital in Hokitika in 1941, Edward Ross who was shot dead in Christchurch in 1975, and Kevin Fox who was killed in Gore last year. Policemen are under orders to shoot only if there is an immediate threat to their own lives, or to those of others. Full reports are made after any police shootings. The reports have almost inevitably said that the police shootings were jusitified. An exception was the shooting of a Petone man, Paul Chase, in the hallway of a flat in the early hours of April 18, 1983. Chase was sought for questioning in connection with a shotgun blast at a tavern two nights earlier. He was shot as he stood in the hallway of the flat. The police believed at the time that he was holding a firearm. It was, in fact, an exercise bar. Later in 1983, an Independent examiner, an Auckland lawyer, concluded that the police squad which had raided the flat was not trigger-happy. No charges were laid against the policemen who shot Chase. The Wellington Coroner, Mr A. D. McGregor, later faulted the police action. Consequently, the police made changes to the methods and training of the armed offender squads. The most notable police shooting was that of Eric Stanley Graham, the West Coast dairy farmer who killed seven men, inluding four policemen. He was shot on the night of October 20, 1941, by Constable J. D. Quirke and died of his wounds in hospital. Another South Island case was that of Edward Ross who was shot dead as he stabbed his daughter in the back with a carving knife at a house in Bumside on October 31, 1975. The shooting ended a threehour siege of the house after Ross had barricaded himself in and threatened to kill the girl, if he did not see his wife, whom he also threatened to kill. The girl suffered cuts and a stab wound to the back. Ross was an escaper from Sunnyside Hospital with a history of mental disturbance and was once jailed for shooting and wounding a policeman. Attempts to negotiate with Ross were made by his wife, a nun, a priest, and the police. They all failed. He was shot by a policeman with a .222 calibre rifle. The third South Island shooting

was that of Kevin Fox, who was shot as he sat in a car in the main street of Gore on June 6, last year. The police had surrounded the car after a man had asked for help at a bank, saying that he was forced to cash a cheque by an armed man in a car outside. Fox was holding a shotgun against the head of his wife, Donna Teresa Fox. He suddenly shot and killed her. Two police marksmen fired at Fox, and he died of a bullet wound a short time later. A preliminary police report said that the shooting of Fox was justified because the police believed there was an immediate threat to their own lives. An independent report done by a Christchurch lawyer, Mr Peter Penlington, Q.C., has not yet been made public. The remainder of the fatal shootings by police were in the North Island. In 1970, Bruce Glensor was Shot as he marched two hostages down a Wellington Street. Glensor moved a shotgun he held at one of the hostages, a girl, aged 17, and pointed it at a policeman who had approached. He was then shot by a member of the armed offenders squad. A confrontation between the police and gang members at Taumaranui resulted in the fatal

shooting of Daniel Houpapa. Gang members had challenged police investigating a gang rape. Houpapa was shot after he had fired towards a policeman. He was preparing to fire again when he was killed. In 1979, the Auckland armed offenders squad surrounded the home of Nicolas Panayi after a voilent domestic dispute between him and his wife. Panayi left the house and fired a shot at the policeman who had appealed to him on a loud halier. He was preparing to fire again when shot. The squad member who shot Panayi said that he had aimed to hit the butt of the man’s rifle, he suceeded but the bullet ricoheted and hit Panayi in the stomach. In December, 1982, John Edward Morgan was fatally shot by a policeman at a rubbish dump. Morgan, a murder suspect, was followed to the dump in an incident-packed chase. He threw an axe at a pursuing policeman, injuring him in the head. Morgan then advanced on the constable, who responded with two shots from his revolver, one of which was fatal. The then Commissioner of Police, Mr R. J. Walton, and the Solicitor-General, Mr D. P. Neazor, ruled that in the circumstances the use of the revolver was reasonable.