In 1964 the New Zealand Police introduced the concept of a highly trained and specialist squad to deal with offenders armed with weapons, in particular firearms.

New Zealand is a country with a high percentage of firearms per head of population. Most of these are for hunting and sporting pursuits. A large number are often souvenirs from a variety of wars New Zealanders have been involved in commencing with the South African war.

Whilst the Police in New Zealand are unarmed it is common for criminals to obtain and use firearms.

The squads throughout New Zealand have attended over 1,000 operations over the past 30 years. They have shot and killed a total of seven offenders in that time. All of these shootings were later found by independent enquiries to be justified. No AOS members have been killed whilst on an AOS operation. The number of injuries suffered in training far outweighs the operational wounding of squad members.

Some 1,000 men and 4 women have served in the AOS over the past 30 years. A number have gone on to make significant contributions in fields outside the Police. Former members of the AOS have become heads of Government departments including the Police; Members of Parliament; clergymen; successful farmers and businessmen. In recent years a former AOS member became the head of the Special Air Service (SAS) in New Zealand.

The purpose of this book is to tell the AOS story from its inception. It includes accounts by AOS members of particularly onerous, serious, humorous and unusual incidents they attended. It covers some of the most dangerous and sometimes controversial chapters in the history of the New Zealand Police.

I am pleased that its publication will also assist the work of Victim Support throughout New Zealand.

Ray Van Beynen

Auckland

1998

Section one: the preceding years

On 14 December 1949 a 22-year-old leading aircraftman, Waata Haremia Momo (known as Walter Henry Momo), was shot dead near the Royal New Zealand Air Force stores depot at Weedons, 13 miles from Christchurch. He had been held in custody because of a nervous mental condition.

Momo broke out of the guard house in the middle of the night, took a rifle and ammunition from the station armoury, held up a taxi in an attempt to escape, and then took refuge in the station telephone exchange, upstairs in a large store building. He fired many shots at those who attempted to approach him at any time and was eventually dislodged by tear gas.

Firing at his pursuers while attempting to escape, he was shot down by the police and airmen who had surrounded the building in the hope that Momo would give himself up.

An inquiry was ordered by the Air Department and detectives also made enquiries.

The Christchurch Star-Sun account at the time recorded:

"Momo escaped from the guard house about 1.30 am and immediately broke into the armoury, taking a .303 rifle and bayonet and, later, about 60 rounds of ammunition. Then he apparently moved toward the main gates of the station near the railway.

"About this time a taxi from Christchurch, driven by Mr Wilfred Drury, with Aircraftman G K Bryant as passenger, drew up. The Commanding Officer, Squadron Leader G S Evatt, and Sergeant C R Clarke rushed out asking if Momo had been seen. There was a warning shout and Momo appeared from the darkness threatening all within hearing. From behind the car Squadron Leader Evatt appealed to him to give himself up but Momo refused, and then fired into the station where other men were gathering. The driver was then ordered by Momo to turn the car around.

"Mr Drury backed round and, while Momo was planning his getaway, made a dash toward Rolleston with his lights off. Three shots were fired after the taxi. One hit the rear of the cab and went into the roof. The second hit a front mudguard. The third went wide. Driver and passenger crouched low in their seats until they were out of range and then raced to the Rolleston railway station, where they telephoned the police.

"Police parties immediately left Christchurch for Weedons and constables at Islington and Lincoln were called. They were armed. Another 20 men were assembled at the Central Police Station to await developments.

"Meanwhile at Weedons, Momo had gone back on to the station. A Leading Aircraftman had been sleeping by the telephone exchange. At approximately 1.40 am he heard a lock being shot away. Just as Momo was breaking his way in with the butt of the rifle, Squadron Leader Evatt rang the exchange. The Leading Aircraftman attempted to escape by the window but could not get the screen off. With the bayonet at his back, Momo ordered him from the building and he left smartly, clad only in his singlet.

"Momo then took up the interrupted telephone conversation with Squadron Leader Evatt. For two hours the Commanding Officer reasoned with him and tried to persuade him to throw away the rifle. Repeatedly Momo said he wanted only to be left alone. He said there had been bad news about his personal affairs and he wanted to take his life.

" ‘He was in deadly earnest all the time,’ Squadron Leader Evatt reported later. ‘He emphasised several times that he was very sorry for what had happened and that his decision had nothing to do with the station at Weedons. At no time would he explain why he was shooting at other people. There was no doubt from his conversation that he was mentally deranged.’

"As time dragged by the Commanding Officer still hoped that Momo might be persuaded to give in. At intervals he would leave the telephone, fire a shot out the window, and then return. Eventually he left the instrument altogether.

"Apparently Momo had seen the growing force of armed police and airmen surrounding him. (The telephone exchange is in a small room upstairs in the north-west corner of a big store which has many doorways. All entrances were covered). Momo began to fire on them fairly steadily.

"While one section drew Momo’s fire, tear gas bombs were thrown in the window. This caused him to make a break but it was not certain from which door he would emerge when he got into the store proper. Eventually he dashed from a side entrance.

"Shooting wildly as he ran, Momo narrowly missed several men. When other lives became endangered, his pursuers returned the fire and Momo dropped dead - shot in a paddock about two chains away from the store. It was about 4.30 am.

"The dead man was born at Tuahiwi in August, 1927. After working as a labourer, he joined the Air Force at Wigram on 14 April 1946 as an aircraft-hand, went to Japan with No. 14 Squadron in 1947 and withdrew from the service on 17 December 1947. Re-enlisting in April 1948 he joined the Air Force again in December of that year and had been employed as a clerk. He was married.

"An inquest was opened by the Coroner (Mr Raymond Ferner) yesterday morning and evidence of identification was given by the station warrant officer at Weedons, Flight Sergeant Leslie Franklin Gibbs.

"Radio - telephone communication greatly helped the organisation of the attempt to capture Momo. The patrol cars which took police to Weedons were in constant communication with headquarters so that appropriate instructions could be relayed. An ambulance and doctor were sent from Christchurch in case of casualties.

"Superintendent J. Bruce Young said this was an unpleasant experience for all concerned. Young men from both the Police and Air Forces were involved in the operation and they had performed their duty with credit. There were several acts of great courage. It was most fortunate that no one else had been shot. The detective branch was now handling inquiries."

One of the policemen who was involved in the shooting now gives his account.

During World War Two at the age of 18 years he was enlisted into the New Zealand Army 27th Infantry. They travelled to Fiji in 1946 and on to Japan. He was based in Hiroshima and other areas.

In 1948 he joined the NZ Police Force, trained in Newtown for 3 weeks and was stationed at Christchurch Central. He recalls the Weedons incident:

It was a shocker, 14 December 1949. I was on the beat in Christchurch at one o’clock in the morning. I’d only probably had about a year’s service.

The old sergeant came out and he said "There’s an Air Force man that has gone mad at Weedons. Come back into the station and we will go out to Weedons" and we went out.

They gave me this little .32 calibre pistol and having been in the Infantry, I thought - this is not much good, but in that era you didn’t criticise what you were given or what orders you were given. We did as we were told.

We went out in the car and we stopped on the Main South Road and went across the paddocks and to the Guard House at Weedons Air Force Base.

We were told then that this guy had been under close arrest, that means locked up there. He had fooled one of the guards and run away with a service rifle and oodles of ammunition.

He was firing shots all over the place, a hell of a lot.

I said to the sergeant at the time "If this chap’s got a .303 service rifle, we should have one too".

The police had none. He said to me "You take that .303 rifle, that service rifle there." It was the same model that I’d been overseas with.

I took a bandolier of ammunition. A bandolier meant there were 50 rounds in it.

In total there was the sergeant and three of us constables. They had pistols. I suppose they were people that weren’t used to heavier weapons.

We went out across the paddock further to where there was a big Air Force store. It was an upstairs place. We came under quite heavy rifle fire straight away.

This was about 2 am. He was swinging large interior lights to light up the area of our approach. It was a very clear night. The moon was up and you could see for miles. He had the elevation, the high ground. We got into a sort of ditch and we stayed there. He smashed the windows and he kept on blazing away at us.

We were in blue uniforms, the old high neck job and I said "If you don’t mind sergeant when daylight comes in another hour or so, he’s going to pick us off like nothing." I said "We can’t get out of it, we can’t go back now because if we jump up he’s still going to get us."

The sergeant said to me "What do you think we should do?"

I said "There’s only one way to do it, and that is to get out of here and use covering fire. I will load up the magazine which will hold 5 rounds and I will put two clips into the magazine" (ie. 10 rounds).

"When I start firing, you guys will jump up and run diagonally across his front to the edge of the store."

So I opened up and shot out every window that there was. Apparently I damaged an aircraft that was underneath, £200 worth of damage, they reckon there was hell to play.

Anyway they got to safety, then I was the only one left. So without a word of a lie I reckon I could have beaten Peter Snell at that time. I jumped out of that ditch and ran across the front.

Of course he knew full well what I was going to do and he gave me a lot of hurry up. I got to the corner of the store and there I met the old sergeant and I said something to him like "This man’s mad and he’s trying to kill us".

I waited there. I don’t know where the sergeant went to, but he seemed to disappear and came back again. I was standing at the corner of the building, looking out and I was watching the sunrise. Because dawn was breaking, I was thinking it’s going to be a great day today, what a warm day. That was about 4.30 am.

We were told that the offender couldn’t come down and yet when I looked back along the line of the building, here’s an Air Force bloke standing there with a rifle and I thought, he’s mad standing there because that guy is just upstairs and he only has to look down and shoot him. I did not know it was the offender.

I looked back again and this guy was pointing his rifle at me. I thought, that must be him, like our information was all to hell. At that time there was no radio or nothing, so I dropped down behind a little tractor that was there to tow the aircraft out and bullets started to hit the tractor and all that.

When I had enough guts to put my head around the corner to see what was happening, he was getting out to the position where we had been.

It was completely reversed. He went down in the military prone position and I waited and he fired a few more shots.

On that military rifle there are tumble sights 300 and 600, that’s the battle sights, so I tumbled it to 300. He was only probably 150 yards away. I opened up on him and I thought to myself after I had fired, there was another shot, but no bullet came my way, so I fired again and then there was another shot.

Unknown to me or anyone else, one of the other constables with his little pistol had gone right round the far end of the building and he was having a shot with his little pistol. The bullet wouldn’t have gone that far! Absolute madness I suppose. That was what I was hearing.

So I thought well, with my marksmanship, I wouldn’t miss, so I crept back to the old sergeant, he was shouting and I said "I think I must have hit him, will I go out there and see?"

I would have walked out there with the rifle at the ready.

"No, no, no, give him another, give him another one", so again I up and shot another one and I crept back. "Well sergeant I think he’s been hit."

So that was when the problems started really because the sergeant said to me "Alright you go forward and see what’s happened."

I went forward and rolled him over and he was dead. He had been aiming at me and one of the bullets had skidded along his rifle and went straight through his head, but the other ones were right along his body.

Of course when they had the Court of Inquiry, it was the bullets not only through his head, but through the other parts of his body that were raised.

An Air Force bloke came along and said to me "You murdering bastard", with that I just unloaded everything and stood there.

The CIB arrived, two detective sergeants. They whisked me away and interviewed me about how this person had been killed. This was the procedure I suppose.

I made a statement just how you would make it. I was on night shift, they said "Okay you get back and have some sleep now."

I was a single man living in barracks and I just went back and had a sleep and when I woke up at 1 pm, I was interviewed again. I think I made another statement, the same thing with no changes.

The old sergeant came to me and he said "Oh, I think you’ll be alright, I think you’ll be alright." I just accepted that, I was so green, I’d been in the military and it was sort of second nature not to question.

I told my father about them saying "I think you’ll be alright." He smelt a rat. He said "I’m not so sure" which reinforced the idea that the sergeant should get me a lawyer. I couldn’t understand what was going on. It was the Department who finally got the lawyer to represent every one including the Department.

My father said to me "You be careful. You don’t want to be in trouble in the police." It was an honour to be in the police, people respected you then.

I had to take our lawyer out to the field, back out to Weedons and with the sergeant of course. I told them what had happened. This was three days after the incident.

The lawyer said, "Christ! How did you survive?"

I knew we were getting shot at when we were in the field, but the bullets were ricocheting off the ground and here were the skid marks of the bullets and where I was at the corner, not that I knew at the time through the heat of the moment, some of his bullets went into the corner of the store where I was and some against fence posts.

Then there was the Court of Inquiry, that’s when I really got hammered.

They put me in the box for the whole day. I’m now 70 years old, but I only looked probably a boy, well I was a boy, only 22 years old.

The leading lawyer called Charlie Thomas, he started on me straight away.

He said "You’re a young man?" I said "Yes".

"What experience have you had in the police?" I said "Oh not much".

"How long have you been in the police?" I said "one year".

"Now what experience, you haven’t had much experience with weapons have you?" he went on. I said "No, not much really".

"Well, and you had this rifle and you intended to use the rifle if necessary?"

I said "Yes that’s right". I said yes to everything.

The old magistrate was sitting there looking at me. Thomas said "Now young man, you see all these relatives here?"

"Yes I see all the relatives".

"Now I want you to tell the Court just what little experience you’ve had with firearms."

I said "Yes I have not long returned from service overseas with the 27 Infantry Regiment. I was promoted in the field to sergeant and I was an instructor in the 36 Mills hand grenade, the Thompson sub-machine gun, the No. 1 Mk 3 Lee Enfield rifle and the bayonet and the Bren gun."

"That can’t be right", he said, "that can’t be right."

Bruce Young, he was the Superintendent of the police here. He finished up as the Commissioner. He was in the Court. He stood up and said "The records have been checked and that is correct."

The Magistrate looked at me and Charlie Thomas said something.

The Magistrate said "Mr Thomas you’ve kept on telling him what inexperience he’s had, you didn’t ask him and he agreed with you."

"There’s something wrong" he said.

They had the lunch adjournment and during the adjournment, this is always what stuck in my mind and I don’t know where it came from, but from somebody obviously I had been in the Army with.

He contacted Charlie Thomas because when I went back on the stand he said "Yes young man you have had an interesting life haven’t you?" He said "have you ever been on guard in Japan?" I said "Yes I was a guard there, everyone did guard duty."

He said "What happened to prisoners who escaped?" I said ‘They were shot". "Yes but," he said "were they called upon to surrender?"

I said "Yes the word was halt, twice and if they didn’t stop they were shot at."

"Yes’, he said, "and you took part in some of that?"

And the old Magistrate, he tore into him. "Oh Mr Thomas, look the war has been over for two years, please we are airing the inquiry here!"

The Magistrate, who was Raymond Ferner, he praised the efforts of the older police and particularly the superintendent who was starting to shake hands and the detective sergeants who interviewed me, they said "I thought it would be alright boy, I thought it would be alright."

They held a parade later on. I got a Certificate of Merit and a £5 reward.

I always thought, never again. The police are a funny mob.

I was so green and didn’t have any rights or anything. Although the sergeant and bosses were good, they were covering their own back as well because they were in charge. However they were still good men.

After Weedons they kept me on the beat and there was only one incident. If you were allowed to take your number off it’d been better.

Some Maoris followed me around on the beat. That was a bit of a worry as well. I said to the bloke on the next beat "One of those Maoris is following me". He said "You walk up into that lane and I’ll fix him."

He woodened the bloke and dragged him underneath a landing.

That worried the guts out of me and I went and told the sergeant. It was terrible. When I took the sergeant to the spot, the bloke had gone.

For a young cop there was no-one you could go to because you didn’t trust anyone. I didn’t know where I was half the time, in my thoughts and that.

If you could have gone to someone and said can you help me or something like that. There was no-one to turn to, not like today. The ones, your friends in the police, they didn’t know and if anything they would say nothing and of course that was worse. At that time it was not done to show any form of weakness.

One got over that and then just carried on.

The official findings of the enquiry were that the operation which resulted in the shooting of Momo was under the control and command of members of the New Zealand Police, assisted by members of the Royal New Zealand Air Force; that he was hit by a number of shots; and that the calibre of the shot which killed him was not disclosed. Some Police and Air Force party members had exchanged weapons at some time during the operation and Momo was being shot at by both Police and Air Force personnel; therefore the identity and Service of the firer of the fatal shot was not determined. On the basis of this information, it was decided to add Momo to the list of those persons shot by the New Zealand Police, as the Police controlled that segment of the operation resulting in his death.

A large number of police officers at the time had served during World War Two and whilst trained to carry and use firearms they took pride in the fact that they could deal with most incidents unarmed.

The firearms available to the police were ex-military weapons. Training in the use of these weapons for those police not trained in the military was almost non-existent. There were no set procedures or tactics and the procedure for dealing with an armed incident was left to the devices of the officer in charge at the time.

New Zealand is a country which has a very high ratio of firearms per head of population. The majority of weapons were kept for sporting purposes and for use in the extensive rural sector. Added to this is the large number of military firearms which found their way back into New Zealand following our participation in the two World Wars.