Police report 1300-plus incidents with firearms

In the past few weeks in the Hawke’s Bay, shots have been fired at a medical centre, on school grounds and in a large public sports ground.

They have all been high-profile incidents, attracting national attention, but they account for a very small fraction of the 1300 firearm incidents in the country since March.

Eastern District Commander Superintendent Tania Kura said the incidents may have been high profile, but the situation was not unique to Hawke’s Bay, and ‘‘our staff are regularly encountering firearms in our communities across the country’’.

In March, police implemented the Gun Safe system, designed to collect more information about firearm incidents.

The system sees officers alert the comms or district command centres when they encounter and seize a firearm, when they are attending an incident where a firearm has or is suspected of having been misused, or when one is presented at them.

Since it was implemented, police have recorded more than 1300 events involving firearms nationally, 40 per cent of which have resulted in firearms being seized.

In Hawke’s Bay, there were 74 events involving firearms since July, resulting in 40 firearms being seized, recovered or surrendered.

The most recent firearms incident occurred on Tuesday when a man, believed to be armed with a pistol, was shot by police on the grounds of Flaxmere Primary School.

The 31-year-old man, who was carrying an imitation pistol, had an altercation with a teacher while trying to enter a classroom.

When located by officers, the man presented a firearm and was shot once, suffering injuries to his arm and torso.

He is in a stable condition in Hawke’s Bay Hospital. He has been charged with unlawfully carrying an imitation firearm and is due in court next month.

The incident at the school came just a week after a man armed with three rifles was the subject of a tense stand-off with police at Napier’s Park Island sports ground. The 44-year-old is alleged to have robbed a house before driving to a location in a large public area. He allegedly fired two shots during the stand-off before he was apprehended.

A few weeks before that, a shot was fired outside the Napier Health Centre. A month before that a shot was fired at a police officer’s house in Wairoa, in the Tairawhiti area, north of Hawke’s Bay.

Kura said several factors were contributing to a changed environment for officers.

These included ‘‘things like the growth in organised crime groups, supply and use of methamphetamine in our communities, rise in mental health problems, and postChristchurch mosque attack dynamics’’.

Kura said it was hard to tell whether the number of firearms-related incidents had increased, but the feeling was that there were more now.