Bay cops back call to carry guns

Greg O'Connor, Police Association president, advocates the routine arming of police. Photo / File

Local police are backing a call for officers to carry guns, instead of having their firearms locked away in the boot of their patrol cars.

Police Association president Greg O'Connor has twice this week advocated the routine arming of police.

His call comes after a man confronted two unarmed officers at Waitakere and fired at their patrol car, followed by unarmed officers facing a firearms incident in Otara.

He repeated the call after the Government raised the country's terror threat level.

Waikato and Bay of Plenty Police Association regional director Wayne Aberhart supports the call for officers to be armed.

"Our stance is that, if you've got firearms, you need them available on your hip not locked away," he told the Bay of Plenty Times yesterday, speaking from the South Australian Police conference in Adelaide.

"Offenders have guns now anyway and we're hiding our heads in the sand if we don't think offenders don't have access to firearms. They do. And our staff need to have them readily accessible and that means on the hip, not in the boot of the car in a locked cabinet, because you never know what incident you're going to attend or what incident could turn into an armed incident."

The debate about whether police officers should carry firearms had been going on for the past 30 years, he said.

He remembered a call-out he had attended in Wellington about 25 years ago. "I was on my own after 11 o'clock at night and I got a call, and next thing I've got a man coming at me with a knife who I asked to put it down, and he just kept coming."

It was not until the man was close enough to see Mr Aberhart was a policeman that he realised the misunderstanding and backed off.

"He had made the call to me. He had said there was a suspicious person outside his house and he thought that I was that suspicious person in the dark."

Police could use a range of tools including pepper spray, batons and Tasers but guns needed to be an option for armed incidents.

"Every situation is different but police officers being shot at by offenders is just not on. I mean, no police officer would want to shoot anybody, but at times you're left with no choice and that's why police officers are charged with keeping the peace."