Officers involved in the shooting of a man who took two children hostage will get at least a 10-day stand down and psychological support before returning to work, the police association president says.
The Tauranga property where police shot a man they say had threatened a woman and child with a machete on Sunday. Photo: RNZ
The shooting followed a lengthy standoff after a man in Tauranga threatened his partner with a knife, before barricading himself and two children in a house.
Police say they had exhausted attempts to resolve the situation peacefully, when officers re-entered the house, the man held a knife to one of the children, and the police shot him dead.
Chris Cahill. Photo: supplied
Police Association president Chris Cahill told Morning Report: "It's certainly tragic and I extend my sympathies to the family of the deceased man.
"There's quite a big procedure to go through. Police and the Police Association have worked really closely in the last few years to improve the response to critical incidents just to make sure we are looking after those officers involved. Because we have probably, had in the past, a little bit of a piecemeal approach and not learned our lesson. So we've done a pretty good job of pulling that together.
"So these officers will have a mandatory 10-day stand-down, now that's not necessarily the minimum, it could go for longer. But we have learnt from other officers involved is if they come back to work, most of them say they came back too soon.
"So stand them down and let them work through some things, get some psychological support and just work through how they are feeling, explain to them what they are going through is normal, not abnormal."
Mr Cahill said there were four investigations which would now be carried out.
"You have a criminal investigation just to make sure that the law was followed and nothing outside the law was done. You have a police policy and procedure investigation. Then ... an independent police conduct investigation and finally a coroner's investigation. So there's a big process to go through and while that's appropriate given what's happened, it's still a lot for officers to go through.
"I can't talk in too much detail around what occurred but I think it would be fair to say police tried everything. For 15 hours they tried to talk this through. It's tragic that they couldn't get a better result but it could have been worse if a child had been hurt as well.
"It's just one of those really difficult situations that there's just no winning in unfortunately."