Armed offenders squad ready to front up

By MARTY SHARPE - The Dominion Post

At the siege of Napier, gunman Jan Molenaar had an arsenal of weapons; the police officer trying to negotiate with him had a loudhailer.

At times, when the armed offenders squad member tried to speak, he faced a hail of bullets from the desperate man inside his heavily fortified house.

Molenaar had the firepower and the military training to use it. The squad members surrounding the house knew he had killed their colleague, Len Snee.

Today, in a rare interview, The Dominion Post speaks to a member of Hawke's Bay armed offenders squad. The members cannot be identified, so we'll call him John.

The Napier siege was undoubtedly his toughest assignment. He was the man on the loudhailer. In a standoff that would last 50 hours, bullets whirred past him and his fellow squad members.

"It was certainly nerve-racking on that job ... and that's an understatement," he says. "I remember thinking, 'I don't get paid enough for this' and wondering why I was running towards the bullets when everyone else is running away."

The squad members are the people in black who are sent in when a gunman is on the loose. Every callout is perilous, but it is a role John loves.

"You have to love it. You couldn't do it unless you did. I'm aware of people who structure the rest of their career about being on the squad. If they were offered a job that would take them off the squad they may stay put.

"It's exciting, challenging and testing, totally different to the normal nine-to-five."

Napier is not the only high-profile callout the squad have faced in past months. In August they tracked a gunman on the run in rural Hawke's Bay after he shot dead a neighbour.

In September a large section of Napier was closed down as they dealt with a man threatening to blow up a bus. This month they spent two days in bitter cold tracking accused murderer David Bourke through bush and farmland near Norsewood.

As the whole country tuned in to news reports on May 7 to watch an armed standoff in a quiet Napier street, the only activity to be seen was AOS members in black scuttling around, risking their lives to end the crisis. Residents who could had fled, those inside the cordon stayed low in their homes.

Police negotiators use phone lines to talk to offenders but, when they refuse to answer, the only line of communication can be an AOS member with a megaphone.

"It's bloody tricky trying to talk someone round," John says. "You talk for 20 seconds and you've run out of things to say. 'You're arrested, come out with your hands above your head' what else can you say?

"I just urged Molenaar to pick up the phone, told him, 'What's happened's happened, don't make it any worse,' 'We just want it sorted out' that sort of thing.

"We didn't get any response. He just shot at the speaker. It was obviously winding him up or something."

Molenaar pumped 110 shots into the area surrounding his Chaucer Rd house. Police fired just two rounds. Squad members spent long hours in positions in neighbouring properties, streets and a cemetery, their faces pressed to weapons trained on Molenaar's house.

They could hear bullets ripping through foliage and hitting trees around them. Most of Molenaar's bullets were aimed at the AOS, though he also fired randomly at times.

"There were a number of near-misses," John recalls. "There were holes fired in trees just above us and we could see bullets going through trees near us. You certainly keep your head down and become aware of where you should be pretty quickly.

"It [Molenaar's house] was one of the hardest buildings I've come across to surround. It was in a dip and we had very little sight into his property. We figured he could see more of us than we could see him. Tactically it was a really hard building to operate around.

"You're in a position, you know you're not going to be relieved for a while. That's when your training comes into play. Every member knows their job and concentrates on that, not on what other people are doing."

The body of Mr Snee, their colleague and close friend, lay on Molenaar's driveway.

"As the day went on and there were quiet times we began thinking about Lenny. The hardest part was when our squad left the scene that night, leaving Lenny there.

"It just didn't feel right leaving him there while another squad came in. We would have loved to have it sorted out by then."

On the Molenaar job, like many others, squad members had just the barest of facts about where they were heading.

"It's quite often the unknown we're headed into. In that situation, for example, the only information I knew was that a policeman had been shot dead and another was missing. That's all I knew, that and the address.

"We might get a quick briefing, but it's not unusual to go on a callout with minimal information. We might know there had been a threat by someone and it was our job to go and find them.

"In other situations we get good detailed briefings on who we're dealing with and what's happened and the likely threat against us.

"The situation is always changing, and it can change quickly. Everything in this job comes down to training."

The AOS worked around the clock until Molenaar turned a gun on himself, ending the standoff.

"What really helped after the Molenaar siege was being called out just a few days later," says John.

"In the siege we worked from Thursday till Saturday. On Monday we got called to another job in Hastings, meaning we were right back on the horse. That was good.

"It might have been different if we hadn't had another job for a few weeks, especially if we'd had a training day without Lenny. We were straight back into it."

John, 41, has a partner and a seven-year-old son. He has served with the armed offenders squad for more than 13 years and attended about 300 callouts.

most people would think it's the worst, most dangerous, job in the police, he has no problem explaining why he does it: "I suppose it's like if you ask a soldier why they want to be a soldier," he says.

"I really enjoy the variety. The excitement is a huge part of it. I know someone's got to do it. The teamwork is quite a big part of it, to be honest."

AOS members are definitely not in it for the money - they pocket an extra 2-6 per cent of their remuneration, depending on length of service and qualifications. They also receive a stand-by allowance, ranging from $28 to $75, depending on the amount of time spent on call.

During a callout, concentration is key and thinking about your loved ones can be a deadly distraction: "You focus on the job you have to do and you roll into it.

Thoughts of wives and children, in my experience, do not come into it at that stage. It's very rare I would think about what's going on at home. It's probably a distraction you don't need."

In all his years on the squad, John says he has never fired a shot in anger. He's spent hundreds of hours carrying handguns and rifles, but says he's not a "gun man".

"Most of us aren't. I know very little about firearms apart from the ones I carry and the ones used to shoot at me."

He has, however, fired plenty of tear gas canisters and stun grenades, broken through countless doors and windows, and tracked dozens of offenders through bush, farms and suburban streets.

THE 16-STRONG Hawke's Bay squad is a tight unit and Len Snee's death at Molenaar's hands hit them hard. His photo and plaque hang high on a wall of the Napier squad room.

The squad members who responded to Chaucer Rd knew their mate was dead and another friend, Senior Constable Grant Diver, had also been shot.

"I couldn't give it a lot of thought," John recalls. "In that case we had one mate down and another who we didn't know where he was. We had to find him. And we had to make sure the guy [Molenaar] didn't hurt anyone else.

"I knew it was Lenny, but the focus was on containing Molenaar and apprehending him. We had to accept our colleague was dead."

John was one of the first on the scene of the Jack Nicholas murder and was on duty for many of the 66 days it took to catch cop killer Terence Thompson, including the final moments when an armed Thompson was shot dead at a Havelock North orchard in 1996.

The three unarmed constables who went to Molenaar's house to execute a search warrant had no idea he had an arsenal of 18 weapons and it was a wake-up call to police as much as it was to the public.

In the year leading up to the May siege, the squad was called out 21 times. In the five months since they have been called out 19 times.

"There's been a huge upsurge," John says. "I think it's safe to say our awareness of safety has been heightened. If there's any hint of the need for AOS, we'll be called."

The AOS mantra is "cordon, contain, negotiate".

The public, for the most part, appears to accept the need for cordons and disruptions. But some officers copped abuse from angry farmers during this month's hunt for gunman David Bourke through bush and farmland near Norsewood.

"To be honest, we're always treated with respect," John says. "Maybe it's because we're carrying big guns, I don't know. The public know we're there for a reason. I know the guys on the Norsewood cordons got a bit of flak from farmers wanting to milk their cows.

"We appreciate what the farmers were going through but the reality was there was an armed offender in that area and we didn't know where he was.

"We often have to weigh up letting people go about their normal lives with their safety. You can imagine what would have been said if a farmer had been harmed."

JOHN'S pager can go off at all hours, whether he is at work or at home. Exceptions are made if he is out of town and occasionally he will be rostered off so he can attend engagements without being summoned in an emergency.

Being in the AOS can impinge on his day job as a detective and on his personal life.

"Before getting called to Norsewood, for example, I was on leave. I was just sitting down to watch a movie (Pirates of the Caribbean) on a rainy day with my partner and son and I got the call. I left and wasn't home for three days." The search for Bourke, who had sparked a hunt when his brother's dead body was found in the back of his car, took place in appalling weather.

"It was freezing, it was dark. We didn't know where this guy was, it was pretty miserable. We were thinking about people in the armchairs in front of their fires ... but I wouldn't have swapped it."

IN THE small Napier squad room where the AOS assembles, everything is darkened by their sinister-looking gear. A row of well-worn boots sits beneath lockers of overalls, flak jackets, pistols, vests and helmets – all black.

A rack of black semi-automatic rifles are on the wall beneath Len Snee's portrait. His name is still on his locker.

On callouts squad members enter this room as constables, sergeants, detectives. They leave it as part of a highly trained and well-armed mobile force focused on finding and shutting down an armed offender.

"On the major jobs I've been involved with I've been absolutely amazed at how the training kicks in and how things become second nature," John says. These skills were put to the test on the Norsewood callout when John and his colleagues spent 45 hours in freezing rain clearing farm buildings looking for Bourke.

"Going into a building is a huge area of risk. You don't know what you're walking into. The offender could be in the next building. Physiologically your adrenaline is pumping. Your senses are heightened, you're wide awake to any threats. You prop on the door and in you go. Mentally it is exhausting. You find yourself really tired after doing a few rooms.

"There are things you don't want to do, buildings you don't want to go into. You know the risk is high but you've got to do it. You've got to go in 100 per cent or you could let yourself down, or let your mates down. In the back of your mind you are aware of the risks, but you know you've got a goal to achieve."

In such stressful conditions it is easy to see how strong bonds develop, and why it is important they do. "We're well looked after if we ever need help after one of these events, but a big part of it is our own team. We all make sure we're coping OK. Things aren't swept under the carpet, like they may have been years ago." A debrief is held after every operation and every procedure is scrutinised.

Most AOS members are in it for the long haul and positions on the squad only come up when someone leaves, which rarely happens.

But what do rank-and-file officers think of AOS members?

"I think they see us as a necessary tool. We get called in when we're needed. I don't think we're seen any differently to the search and rescue guys, or the dog handlers ... at Chaucer Rd, for example, you could see the relief when we turned up."

TRAINING is arduous and continuous. Every year AOS members attend courses on weapons, tactics, dealing with clandestine P labs, hostage situations, first aid and other skills.

"You need to be fit – you can't be a slouch – but other skills are more important. You need to be able to make decisions quickly. It's not a job for procrastinators.

"You have to be able to sum up a situation, work through the options for dealing with it, select your option and go forward. And it's not a place for individuals."

A good dose of courage helps too, as does an ability to function in extreme conditions without distraction.

So how long will John stay on the squad? "I don't see an end in sight. Lenny [Snee] hit 20 years. I have seven to go to get to that ... he was the guy we really looked up to."