A gunman shot dead by police on Main St in broad daylight - it sounds like something that happens in the United States. Yet the shooting in Upper Hutt at lunchtime on Tuesday suddenly seems no longer as unusual as it used to be in New Zealand.
Three weeks ago shots were fired at police in Raetihi after their car was rammed in pursuit of armed offenders in the central North Island. The following day police shot and wounded a parolee in Motueka who pointed a gun at them. A few days earlier a number of rounds had been fired at a police station from a car in Palmerston North. Before that, we had the incident in Auckland's Myers Park when a disturbed young man had said he was armed, and the officers who shot and killed him had reason to believe it.
The more often police are confronted with firearms, the more likely they are to assume the worst in dangerous situations. At Upper Hutt, as in Myers Park, they appear to have been confronted by men with a death wish but in the latest incident the offender was wielding a high-powered rifle and fired it at a police dog before the officers brought him down.
Not so very long ago fatal shootings in these circumstances would have prompted a vigorous public debate about the police actions and it would have continued as the required official inquiries produced their reports. Nowadays the community is less critical of the police and inquiries by coroners and the Independent Police Conduct Authority can proceed in a calmer public climate.
It may be that just about everybody now recognises the risks we ask police officers to take in situations where offenders are, or may be, armed. The more these dangerous situations occur, the more grateful we should be to those prepared to put themselves in harm's way for the public's protection.
