FRIDAY PRAYER WILL RETURN TO MASJID AL NOOR PAGE 2 ‘GUNMAN PLANNED THIRD ATTACK’
Police are confident the gunman allegedly behind last Friday’s mass shootings in Christchurch was on his way to attack a third location when he was arrested.
Speaking to media yesterday morning, Police Commissioner Mike Bush hailed his officers for their quick response, calling their efforts ‘‘fantastic’’.
He went on to say police had identified where the gunman was headed after attacking the Deans Ave and Linwood mosques.
‘‘I’m not going to go into those details – I don’t wish to traumatise others,’’ he said.
‘‘That will form part of the court case, but we absolutely believe we know where he was going and we intervened on the way.’’
Bush also refused to say whether the accused gunman had travelled to Christchurch previously, or whether he had scoped out the mosques before attacking them.
‘‘Within 10 minutes, the armed offenders squad were on the scene ready to respond,’’ Bush said.
‘‘Within 21 minutes, the person that is now in custody was arrested, 21 minutes from when we were first notified.’’
Bush acknowledged this was a change of information: ‘‘I have previously said the offender was in our custody within 36 minutes.
‘‘I have now been made aware that, while we had the offender in custody at the Justice Precinct within 36 minutes, it in fact only took 21 minutes from the first 111 call for the offender to be apprehended at the roadside by the two officers.’’
The accused gunman was apprehended by two rural policemen on Brougham St after the shootings at the Deans Ave and Linwood mosques.
The timeline of the events last Friday, including the attacks,
‘‘You cannot convict for murder without that cause of death.’’
Police Commissioner Mike Bush
which killed 50 people and wounded 50 others, was believed to be about 40 minutes in total.
Meanwhile, work to identify all the bodies had been difficult, Bush said yesterday.
‘‘Our No 1 priority is the victims and their families, but we do of course have other obligations.’’
The first of which, is to ‘‘ensure absolute accuracy in that identification process’’.
Bush said it must be ‘‘to the standard required for the coroner’’.
Six coroners were on site ‘‘working with our reconciliation team’’, he said.
‘‘If we get that wrong, that is unforgivable.’’
There were further challenges around working to identify the cause of death in each case.
‘‘Not just delivering to the coroner an evidential standard for identification, we must prove for prosecution the cause of death to the satisfaction to the coroner, to the judge.
‘‘You cannot convict for murder without that cause of death,’’ Bush said.
Family members had earlier expressed frustration at the length of time taken to release bodies. In total, 30 victims had been returned to their families by yesterday afternoon.
In response to suggestions that families had not been allowed to identify the bodies of their relatives, Bush said family members had been allowed to identify relatives in some cases.
‘‘We have been [allowing visual identification] and I was at the mortuary when one was being prepared yesterday, and that was completed,’’ Bush said.
Visual identification formed part of secondary evidence, but primary evidence involved DNA and fingerprints.
It remained unclear how long it would take to complete the release all of the victims’ bodies.
International agencies were also working with NZ Police to build a ‘‘comprehensive picture’’ of the accused, Bush said.