Remembering police dog Gazza
A police dog handler has told how he’s asked himself ‘‘one hundred million times’’ if there was anything else he could have done the night a gunman took the life of his beloved partner Gazza.
‘‘Hindsight’s a lovely thing,’’ Wellington district handler Josh Robertson said.
‘‘We acted the best we could with the information we had at that time.
‘‘We didn’t know this person was armed. If we’d known, there would have been a different approach to that address.’’
The address he’s talking about is 26A Kokiri Cres at Cannons Creek, Porirua. The weatherboard two-storey state house that used to be there was badly burnt and pulled down roughly three weeks after Pita Tekira, 29, shot and killed Robertson’s police dog Gazza inside it.
Tekira eventually barricaded himself in a nearby house where police found him dead the following morning despite the efforts of a negotiation team to bring him out safely during what turned into a 26-hour standoff in April, 2016.
Robertson spoke about Operation Kokiri after he along with officers Giulia Boffa, Sean Burn, Rob Eastham, and Jonathan Westrupp received district commander’s commendation medals for bravery at a police Wellington District Awards Ceremony in Porirua this week.
Officer Campbell Taylor received the commissioner’s gold merit award for his bravery after leaving cover outside to move Westrupp, who he believed had been shot, to safety after Westrupp was injured jumping from a second-floor window.
Police had gone to Kokiri Cres that day to execute a search warrant, after Tekira cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet in Hawke’s Bay. He was facing dishonesty, driving and violent offending charges.
Porirua Police area commander inspector Tracy Johnson read a citation for the awards, saying officers entered the address to help a terrified woman, knowing there was a risk in doing so.
‘‘This became reality when he and his colleagues were shot at from close range from behind a closed door resulting in Gazza being fatally shot.’’
Gazza was a few weeks short of his fourth birthday - just coming into his prime – and was set to be one of the stars in a series of TVNZ1’s Dog Squad.
Robertson said it was nice for the team to be recognised.
‘‘Everyone who was there, they did a really good job.
‘‘The fact that it comes from our district commander Sam Hoyle ... coming from Sam that means a lot us. It means a lot to me because I really respect the man.
‘‘I couldn’t think of a better person for it to come from.’’
Robertson’s work, which he continued with another dog of similar age to Gazza, takes him around the district and he regularly sees the property.