Coroner tries to find if man wished to be shot
A man shot by police in an Auckland park exchanged more than 100 frantic texts with his girlfriend in the hours before, as she pleaded with him not to harm himself, a coronial inquest has been told.
David Cerven, a 21-year-old Slovakian man, died in Myers Park in August 2015 after calling 111 to alert police to his location.
He was sought over three armed robberies on the North Shore and police said he claimed to be armed.
After 20 minutes of negotiating, he was fatally shot. He was later found to be unarmed.
Coroner Katharine Greig yesterday opened an inquest into his death, seeking to discover whether Cerven wanted police to shoot him.
Detective Sergeant Andrew Saunders told the inquest Cerven had become emotional on the day of the shooting after seeing a media report naming him as a person of interest in one of the robberies.
He then told his girlfriend he had committed the robbery, saying he was going to police to confess.
Panicked by his sudden departure, his girlfriend became frantic as she tried to call and then repeatedly texted him.
He sent messages telling her he was ashamed and sorry for what he had done and that while he loved her, she must now forget him and move on with her life.
She begged him to come back, saying “his mother would never forgive her that she let him go if he harmed himself”.
After a few hours, Cerven called police, with four unarmed officers being the first to respond, Saunders said. But Cerven did not follow instructions.
Two armed police, one carrying a rifle, then arrived.
Cerven immediately pulled his hands out of his pockets, put them together as if holding a pistol and pointed them at the police, the officers said in their statements. Cerven was then fatally shot.
A recording of Cerven’s 111 call revealed him telling police everybody on the internet was saying he had held up a liquor store but that he “robbery (sic) nothing”.
He told police he would wait for them and patiently spelled his name on numerous occasions but officers were at first not willing to attend because they thought the name he said was “Terven”.
The inquest was then shown CCTV footage of the incident overlaid with radio communications between the officers attending the incident.
A grainy Cerven appears to be shown in the distance with police flashlights on him, before a female officer radios in “shots fired, shots fired”, followed by a call for an ambulance.
Saunders was the only witness to appear, with the inquest now adjourned until December 14.