Call to hasten taser roll-out after shooting

The roll out of tasers for police should be sped up following the fatal shooting of Senior Constable Len Snee in Napier, the Police Association says.

Jan Molenaar, 51, killed Mr Snee and critically wounded two other officers and a member of the public during a "routine" cannabis warrant in Napier Hill on Thursday morning .

Molenaar was holed up in the house rigged with explosives for several days with an artillery of firearms, before police found him dead on Saturday.

Mr Snee was the third police officer killed on the job in the past 10 months and the 29th to die in the line of duty.

Police Association president Greg O'Connor said he did not know if tasers could have made a difference, but it would have been a nice option for the officers to have.

Tasers were slowly being made available.

"I hope ... the roll out is actually accelerated. It just has to be," Mr O'Connor told Radio New Zealand today.

He hoped after what had happened in Napier that taser opponents, who had delayed the weapon's release to police, would realise policing was dangerous and that officers needed some tools.

He was reluctant to say that all officers should be armed, and preferred the taser option.

"We can't arm police unless New Zealanders, the media, commentators, the experts are prepared to change their thinking as well, because an officer unfortunate enough to use lethal force ... would have been absolutely vilified."

Overseas police did not come under the same scrutiny, he said.

"Maybe the fact that we are so prepared to leap on police as soon as there's a perception that they've overstepped the mark, maybe that's something that gets picked up by the public, particularly the offenders and [they] say, `hey its ok for everyone else to have a crack, maybe we can too'.

"Because one thing that really does ring through all this is that more and more people are prepared to have a go."

A survey released last week found 86 percent of police general duties branch staff had been attacked in the last year, 33 percent of those were injured.

Eleven percent had been threatened with a firearm and 67 percent with another kind of weapon.

Police officers he had spoken to were reluctant to be armed as they did not want to end up like the police officer who shot Steven Wallace in Waitara, Mr O'Connor said.

"Police officers aren't scared of getting shot, they're actually scared of shooting someone, and that is situation which is really probably impacting on policing more than anything."

If New Zealand did decide to arm police there would be huge implications, he said.

Criminals overseas reacted to police differently when they were armed.

"It's not just a matter of putting a firearm on the hip it's actually a matter of rethinking the whole way we go about our business."

Prime Minister John Key said overseas research had shown police weapons overseas were turned against officers and having armed police made the force unapproachable.

"There are a lot of risks with arming the police... my preference would be not to arm police," he told Radio Live.

He understood the calls that police should carry arms, but said while that may have been useful in the Napier situation often it was counter productive.

- NZPA