Shooting shows police need better access to weapons

The latest shooting of a policeman in South Auckland yesterday showed how badly police needed better access to guns, Police Association president Greg O'Connor says.

Constable Jeremy Snow, 28, nearly died when he was hit in both legs and one arm by a gunman who opened fire as he and a colleague were checking a suspicious vehicle in Papatoetoe about 4am yesterday.

Mr Snow dropped to the ground bleeding profusely while his partner Robert Cato backed off and called for help.

Armed police arrived within minutes and rescued Mr Snow who was taken to hospital for emergency surgery.

However, Mr O'Connor said the police policy of having weapons available but not immediately available was not working.

He said during a recent visit to Norway he was shown police policy in action where front line police had immediate access to guns in unlocked cabinets in their cars.

"The police officer can decide instantly if they are going to take a firearm into an incident. "

He said that could work in New Zealand where seven police officers had been shot in the last year, two of whom died.

He said had the two constables been armed in Papatoetoe, the "situation might have been quite different".

He said criminals might not have shot at them if they knew police could have shot back.

He said main offenders were already armed and it was a myth to say if the police were armed criminals would be armed.

He said many shootings had come out of "very ordinary pieces of policing. Therefore it is those routine pieces of policing where officers need to have firearms available, everyday stuff".

He said it was essentially almost arming police.