Gunman's family says sorry

A family friend of the paraplegic gunman who went on a shooting rampage in Christchurch has apologised for his actions.

Shayne Sime's body was removed from his home in the Christchurch suburb of Burnside yesterday afternoon.

About 160 shots were fired by Simes on Sunday night, wounding two people including a police officer, before he was killed by police.

At a press conference this afternoon, family friend Ann Hicks said the Sime family was very sorry for what had happened.

"Shayne was a much loved member of his family.  He was a loving son, loving brother and loving dad to his two sons."

Hicks said the family wanted to "apologise to everyone who was hurt in the last few days".

"Shane had head trauma when he was 24 years old. Because of this he developed a spinal disorder which wasted his muscles and confined him to a wheelchair. "

Hicks said his "cheeky sense of humour was instrumental and giving him the strength" to overcome that condition.

Before his accident Shayne Sime was a fisherman who was a black belt in karate.

Sime regularly visited his mum. "She last saw him on Friday''.

"They will miss him dearly.''

A post mortem was due to be carried out on Sime's body today.

Inquiry head Detective Inspector Brett Kane said Sime had been drinking with a friend on the afternoon before his shooting spree.

Sime's drinking partner was thought to have left the property before the shooting started.

Serious damage was done to neighbouring homes in Wadhurst Place, nearby Guildford Street, and a kindergarten on nearby Greers Road during the shooting.

Detective Superintendent Brett Kane said bullets went beyond the cul-de-sac. "We are still asking people to check their properties for any damage."

Residents of Wadhurst Place and Guildford Street have not been able to return home as police continue a painstaking examination of the scene.

Police say some Wadhurst Place residents have been allowed to visit their homes to pick up essential items under supervision and they hope to reopen Guildford Street today.

The death of disabled gunman Shayne Richard Sime was a "classic case of suicide by police", the police union says.

Firearms, and offenders willing to use them, were now a fact of New Zealand policing, Police Association president Greg O'Connor said.

Sime, 42, was shot and killed by police after he told family he was suicidal and then embarked on a two-hour shooting spree, sitting in his wheelchair on his front doorstep and firing 100 shots at neighbouring homes and people.

An armed offenders squad member was shot in the face with a shotgun and a 39-year-old neighbour, who went to his front door directly across from Sime's house, was peppered with pellets from shoulder to groin.

The two wounded men were lucky Sime was not using his high-powered rifle, which police said could have fired bullets for up to seven kilometres.

The police officer had minor surgery in Christchurch Hospital yesterday and was discharged.

The neighbour, understood to be a businessman with a young family, was also treated and discharged.

He and his family were staying in a Christchurch hotel last night while his extensively damaged house was examined.

Wadhurst Pl was yesterday littered with hundreds of evidence markers for shell casings and bullet marks.

Police said the power of Sime's rifle meant bullets could have travelled up to 7km in any direction as far as the city centre, the airport or the suburb of Halswell. People within that area were asked to report bullet damage to property.

What triggered the fatal spree is still unknown, although police said Sime had contacted family on Sunday saying he was suicidal.
Ad Feedback

Police had visited the wheelchair-bound loner about a firearms incident in February after a complaint from a neighbour, but they were satisfied with his explanation that he was using his son's BB gun to shoot at a cardboard target in his backyard. He held a firearms licence. His last conviction was in 1990, and most of his previous offending was alcohol-related, police said.

O'Connor said police were "incredibly lucky that, with this person intent on taking their own life, the first person to arrive wasn't a couple of our patrol cars or it very likely would have been a Napier-type situation".

He was referring to last month's Napier siege where gunman Jan Molenaar killed a police officer and wounded two other officers conducting a search for cannabis.

O'Connor said the incident showed that policing in New Zealand was a "changed environment" and that Napier was not a one-off.

Ad Feedback "We've got a lot of firearms out there and we've got a lot of people prepared to use them," he said. "Suicide by police, which this clearly was a case of, we're just lucky in provoking [the shooting] there wasn't a police officer or member of the public killed. It really begs the question of how adequately equipped our frontline staff are."

Detective Superintendent Brett Kane, from police national headquarters, who is heading the inquiry, said the previous firearms complaint involving Sime was responded to quickly on the same night, and officers were satisfied with the explanation.

Kane said the police officer shot was fortunate to be wearing a helmet, and it was lucky no-one else was injured. About 40 residents were evacuated on Sunday night, some staying at the nearby Burnside High School hall.

Most will have to stay with friends, family or in motels for several days as police complete inquiries, including recovering pellets and bullets.

Kane said shots had been fired from the front and rear of Sime's property. Sime had shown "some agility" in his wheelchair.

Kane said Sime had been in contact with other people throughout the incident, including texting. Police had yet to speak to his family.

O'Connor said Police Commissioner Howard Broad's statements that there would never be regularly armed police while he was in charge were "naive".

"How many police officers will it take to be shot at and shot before he reconsiders that? We've lost three officers in a year," O'Connor said

"This could easily have been four."

He said Tasers were "not even in the debate" when it came to firearms.

FATAL POLICE SHOOTINGS

June 28, 2009. Shayne Richard Sime, 42, shot in Burnside, Christchurch, after more than two hours of indiscriminate shooting from his Wadhurst Place house.

January 23, 2009. Halatau Naitoko, 17, shot on an Auckland motorway as police pursued another driver.

October 23, 2008. A woman armed with a gun is shot by a member of the police armed offenders squad at a Vodafone shop in Reyburn St, Whangarei.

September 26, 2007. Stephen Bellingham, 37, is shot by a policeman in Stanmore Rd, Christchurch, after advancing on the officer with a hammer.

August 14, 2004. Haidar Ebbadi Mandi, 37, died from a bullet to the head as he stabbed his wife being held in a headlock in a South Auckland house.

April 30, 2000. Steven Wallace, 23, of Waitara, shot after a window-smashing spree in the town.

July 1, 1999. Edwin Leo, 31, shot near Helensville, Northland, after a car chase.

September 21, 1996. James Raharuhi shot at a service station in Greenlane, Auckland, after firing shots inside and outside the station.

June 24, 1996. Terence Thompson shot in a Havelock North orchard. Thompson was the prime suspect in the slaying of Constable Glenn McKibbin.

November 20, 1995. Barry Radcliffe shot after taking a rifle from a sporting goods store in Whangarei.

September 28, 1995. Eric Gellatly shot in Invercargill after he took over a sports shop in the central city and began firing indiscriminately.

July 29, 1993. Larry Hammond died after being shot three times in the Morrinsville police station after holding police and members of the public hostage armed with a crossbow.

November 14, 1990. Members of the anti-terrorist squad shot David Malcolm Gray after he killed 13 people at Aramoana, Otago.

October 27, 1990. Paul Melvin Stowers died after being shot in the forehead by a detective whom he threatened with a shotgun in Newmarket, Auckland.

March 14, 1986. Benjamin Wharerau shot as he took a hostage in a robbery of a Dargaville bank.

June 6, 1985. Kevin David Fox was shot after he killed his wife in a car in Gore.

April 18, 1983. Paul Chase shot by the armed offenders squad in a raid on a Petone, Wellington flat.

December 24, 1982. John Edward Morgan shot near Wainuiomata, Wellington, after throwing an axe at police.

May 20, 1979. Nicholas Panayi shot by the armed offenders squad outside his Henderson, Auckland, home after a domestic dispute.

October 4, 1976. The armed offenders squad shot Daniel Houpapa after he fired at an officer in Taumarunui.

1975. Edward Ross shot by the armed offenders squad as he stabbed his daughter after escaping from a Christchurch psychiatric hospital.

April 16, 1970. Bruce John Glensor, holding two hostages in a Wellington house, shot by the armed offenders squad when he threatened to shoot an officer.

December 14, 1949. Waata Haremia Momo shot in Weedons, Canterbury, after exchanging shots with police.

October 20. 1941. West Coast farmer Eric Stanley Graham killed after shooting three policemen and three civilians.

- By IAN STEWARD and JO MCKENZIE-MCLEAN