Armed police not on agenda

Frontline officers will never be routinely armed while he is in charge, the police commissioner says.

Howard Broad, writing in today's Dominion Post, said arming frontline officers would be likely to cause more problems than it would solve.

But Police Association president Greg O'Connor said the matter had to be seriously debated and wondered how many officers would have to be killed before that happened. "They will be armed eventually but it will take a member of the public to be shot because police don't have the ability to immediately respond."

Mr Broad said putting guns in the hands of police was not the solution, despite the deaths of Senior Constable Len Snee in the Napier siege last month and Sergeant Don Wilkinson, who was shot and killed in South Auckland last September.

"I have no doubt that carrying handguns would compromise officers' ability to do their regular work," Mr Broad writes.

"Routine arming will no doubt continue to be discussed and debated but my judgment is that there is no immediate need or prospect to have every frontline officer carrying arms."

Calls for the arming of police officers have increased following the death of Mr Snee at the hands of gunman Jan Molenaar and Mr Wilkinson's death while on an undercover operation.

Police are not routinely armed but have access to firearms if there is clear evidence of certain risks. The firearms are supposed to be authorised by a sworn officer, but if no one is available "members may exercise their own discretion", the guidelines state.

Police can also carry guns in secure cabinets in cars, which they acknowledge is a fairly common practice. There are 753 Bushmaster rifles and 1149 Glock pistols available in the police armoury.

Two-thirds of frontline staff members were threatened with a weapon in the year ending last November, research found. About one in 10 was threatened with a firearm.

Mr O'Connor, who is currently studying policing in Scandinavia, did not support all police carrying guns but said the matter had to be looked at.

"I'm disturbed that the commissioner can be so definitive in the face of two officers being shot in a matter of months.

"We said the debate should take place outside the emotion of Len Snee's death and it's disappointing to see that now there's not going to be any debate there needs to be."

He understood public concern at seeing armed police carrying rifles but said there were too many assaults and shootings of officers. "If police can't protect themselves, what confidence can the public have that they can be protected," he said.

But Mr Broad said a pistol was "no match" for most firearms offenders, who are armed with hunting rifles or shotguns.

"Our strategies rely on officers' good judgment. If the situation is unequivocal, they have arms at ready resort with which to equip themselves."

 - The Dominion Post