Police issue timeline of terror attacks

The first armed police to arrive near Christchurch’s Al Noor Mosque after a gunman’s massacre did not see the suspect drive away because a bus blocked their view.

By the time first responders got to the Deans Ave mosque, where 43 people were fatally shot on March 15, the suspect was already a minute away from his second alleged target, the Linwood mosque.

In the minutes after the terror attack began at 1.40pm, police also believed they had three shooting scenes on their hands. There were reports that shots were fired at Christchurch Hospital’s emergency department, but it later turned out that this did not happen.

Police learnt about the Linwood attack at 1.56pm, when a member of the public flagged down a police car and told them shots had been fired in Linwood.

It took police 10 minutes from the start of the shooting at Deans Ave to get a description of the vehicle that the alleged shooter was driving.

The new details are contained in a just-released timeline of the police response to the Christchurch terror attacks.

Yesterday, Commissioner Mike Bush said the public should have as much information about the response as possible.

The response began at 1.40pm on March 15. It took six minutes after the first 111 call – at 1.41pm – for the armed offenders squad to arrive near the scene, on the corner of Riccarton Rd and Deans Ave.

There were 18 minutes from the time of the first 111 call to the arrest of the offender.

‘‘I reaffirm my previous comments that police staff acted as quickly as humanly possible given the rapidly unfolding nature of the event, and the information available to us in that very brief period of time,’’ Bush said.

The investigation team was still focused on confirming certain details, particularly timings from a number of electronic systems and devices with different internal clocks, he said.

The information released yesterday was the best information he had without compromising the criminal investigation or trial.

‘‘I want to emphasise we are still in an investigation phase and now a prosecutorial stage.’’

To provide ‘‘absolute transparency’’, an independent team, including a Queen’s counsel, would debrief on the police response. ‘‘The debrief is an important process to ensure any lessons are learnt, and used to inform future operational responses,’’ Bush said.

The attacks prompted New Zealand’s terror threat level to be lifted to ‘‘high’’ for the first time.

Yesterday, this was downgraded to medium, meaning police will no longer routinely carry firearms.

International police were in Christchurch for a specialist training course on March 15. Officers from Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and Hong Kong, as well as New Zealand Defence Force personnel, responded alongside New Zealand police and gave first aid at the Linwood mosque.

Bush thanked them, saying ‘‘their specialist skills have been credited with saving lives and we were fortunate to have them on the ground with us’’.