Gunman had shot at police twice before
A gunman crouched behind a car and opened fire at police officers, hitting a police car multiple times before he was shot twice.
The 33-year-old man was shot by police in Christchurch about 7.30pm on Tuesday after opening fire at police with a shotgun.
The man, from Woolston, was the same man who fired shots at two police cars in two separate incidents early on Saturday morning, Canterbury district commander Superintendent John Price said.
‘‘In that previous incident, officers signalled a car to stop in Wainoni, due to the manner of driving. The car failed to stop, and officers saw what they believed to be shots fired from the vehicle, towards police.’’
Officers immediately abandoned the pursuit. Further shots were then fired from the same vehicle towards a stationary police car parked in Dyers Rd.
Price said ‘‘extensive inquiries’’ had been undertaken since Saturday to locate the offender.
On Tuesday, officers spotted the car in Breezes Rd about 7.20pm and signalled for the driver to pull over.
During the pursuit the man appeared to deliberately drive towards an officer as they laid down road spikes.
The grey Holden car eventually came to a stop about 5km after the pursuit began when it drove over road spikes near Eveleyn Couzins Ave, in Richmond. The man then got out of his car and crouched behind the back of the car, firing at police ‘‘multiple times’’ with a shotgun.
Police fired back using Bushmaster rifles and police-issue Glock pistols. The offender was shot twice in the lower body.
Investigators were still working out how many shots were fired by the offender, and how many were fired by police.
Five police officers in four cars were involved in the incident.
One of the police cars sustained ‘‘major bullet holes’’ at the front of the vehicle, Price said.
It was down to luck that police officers or members of the public were not shot, he said.
‘‘We are extremely lucky that no innocent members of the public or police officers were injured during this incident.’’
Price said it was ‘‘simply unacceptable’’ for officers to be threatened, harmed or targeted while doing their job.
‘‘It tears at the very fabric of our society.’’
The man was taken to Christchurch Hospital, where he remained under armed police guardyesterday morning. He was in a serious but stable condition, Price said.
Vaughan Mclean, who lives near where the incident happened, said he saw a car, closely followed by four police cars, lose one of its tyres as it turned into Eveleyn Couzins Ave off North Avon Rd about 7.30pm on Tuesday.
He said he grabbed his daughter and jumped over a fence as police shot at the vehicle.
‘‘We came running out to have a look ... they [police] were firing … you could hear it hitting our fences and bouncing off the house. We could feel them flying past us.’’
He said he lay on the lawn with his daughter underneath him until the gunshots stopped, before running back inside.
The incident comes the same week as another police shooting.
Mongrel Mob member Astin Cruz Hooper, 29, died after he was shot by police after he robbed a bank in Kawerau, Bay of Plenty.