Weaponry causes unease
Police with guns are becoming a more common sight on the streets. But what is behind the increasing militarisation of our police force? Tom Kitchin investigates.
It is summertime, you are down at the shops when you see an armed police officer, wearing a dark balaclava and toting a large rifle.
This might sound like a place far from New Zealand.
But ex-cop Lance Burdett, who was the country’s lead police negotiator, remembers a time when armed offenders squad (AOS) members would be deployed as a deterrent.
‘‘It happened in Rotorua quite a few years ago where the AOS commander there decided to deploy the AOS around the shops because there were robberies at Christmas time,’’ he says.
‘‘Guys and girls dressed in black with a semi-automatic rifle draped across their front with balaclavas on, would that make you feel safe? I would not be feeling safe, I would think I was in a war-torn country,’’ Burdett says. Figures released to the Sunday
Star-Times show the highlytrained AOS squads are on New Zealand streets more often each year – but their modus operandi is changing. The squads mostly attend pre-planned warrants and not as many emergencies.
AOS callouts in the country increased between 6 and 9 per cent in each of the past four financial years.
Yet shots were fired in only 12 of the more than 3600 incidents squads attended over that time.
Each year, about 65-70 per cent of callouts are pre-planned, for situations such as high-risk search warrants, and the rest were for emergencies.
Canterbury was a hive of AOS activity. Generally, the South Island district had the highest number of AOS callouts of any police district, but its workload dropped by about a third, from about four to three callouts a week, in 2018-19. That was in part because of the March 15 terror attack where 51 people were fatally shot at two Christchurch mosques.
Bay of Plenty took over the lead, with 157 callouts in 2018-19 because of an increase in preplanned events.
Canterbury’s AOS commander, Inspector Bryan Buck, has seen big changes over his time in the squad. He has been a police officer for more than 30 years, part of the AOS for 24 years and the district’s AOS commander for 10 years. When he began as Canterbury’s AOS commander, about 80 per cent of callouts were for emergency situations and only 20 per cent were pre-planned. Now, he says that has ‘‘flipped on its head’’.
He attributes that to two things – serious events changing police risk assessments and criminals carrying more firearms.
It is a ‘‘cultural change’’, he says – moving from punchups, to knife attacks and now gunshots.
Canterbury police district commander Superintendent John Price attributes the high number of pre-planned callouts to AOS teams helping out its precision targeting team (PTT) – a unit pioneered in Canterbury six years ago that helped target highrisk offenders.
The AOS supported the team in pre-planned raids. In 2018, Canterbury’s PTT seized 199 firearms from criminals.
There was a reduction in PTT activity and staffing after the mosque attacks, leading to fewer callouts overall in Price’s district.
‘‘If you go back prior to the 15th of March we had actively been looking at removing firearms out of the hands of criminals on the streets,’’ he says.
‘‘We have been actively looking for firearms, rather than just coming across them.’’
Price believes armed response teams (ART), a trial involving AOS-trained staff being based full-time in Holden Acadia SUVs to respond immediately to firearm threats, could already be putting a dent in the number of AOS calls. The six-month trial in Canterbury, Waikato and Counties Manukau finishes in April.
When the ARTs were introduced in October, Price said police needed the additional weaponry to curb the growing number of violent criminals.
As a police negotiator, Burdett worked closely with AOS staff. He now works as a leadership and management consultant.
‘‘Just be a bit more transparent, it will alleviate a lot of fears.’’
Lance Burdett
He noticed the rise in preplanned callouts before he left the force nearly five years ago.
And like current officers, Burdett has also noticed more firearms on the streets.
The reasons for the increase reflect changes in society, Burdett says.
‘‘It’s happening worldwide, it’s a sort of phenomenon. The basic thing is our brains are going faster than ever before and our default setting is anger.
‘‘Our brains haven’t adapted to this fast-paced world. Why have younger generations become more apathetic? Why are they more sensitive? Why are they more caring and why are some of them absolutely angry? Because they’re the ones stuck in the middle.’’
Given the rise in armed police on the streets, Burdett hopes the police will be more transparent about the introduction of armed response teams.
‘‘Police, they don’t make decisions willy-nilly, there’s not somebody there that says ‘oh let’s just put armed cops on it’, this has been talked about for 20 years. So what was the final pincher? Just tell the public, just be a bit more transparent, it will alleviate a lot of fears.’’
Police say the presence of armed response teams doesn’t mean there’s an immediate threat they are responding to.
‘‘However, we must recognise that the environment has changed and police’s capability and resourcing needs to reflect this to ensure New Zealanders feel, and are, safe,’’ a statement says.
But Burdett says more specific information is key. ‘‘Being a little more transparent might bring reassurance.’’