More police should have access to handguns - Broad

Police Commissioner Howard Broad. Photo / Janna Dixon

More police should have access to handguns while on routine patrol, says Police Commissioner Howard Broad.

Mr Broad today presented Police Minister Judith Collins with a draft report on training more police to use firearms and placing more firearms in more police vehicles.

He said today that no decision has been made on exactly which vehicles will carry the guns in lock boxes.

Mr Broad and Mrs Collins said it was not necessary to arm all police.

He Broad said he was discussing with the minister issues around double-crewing - pairing up police for routine patrols.

Mrs Collins, who yesterday described as "horrendous" and "utterly sickening" the machete attack on Taihape senior constable Bruce Mellor at the weekend, said she will now read the report and have further discussions with cabinet colleagues and police officials.

The minister and her commissioner signalled that rural police officers in patrol cars were most likely to receive extra guns.

Police can have guns with them, kept in a box in their vehicle's boot, but Mr Broad has been looking at a policy change where they could be kept within hand reach in the vehicle.

He said today that the changes will remove requirements for police to get authorisation and set up cordons before weapons could be used. He wanted guns available in frontline vehicles: cars used for incident patrols, crime and inquiries.

Mrs Collins has argued that because the policy change has been in train for a while it was not a "knee-jerk" reaction.

Mr Broad's review came after police introduced a controversial plan last year to reduce the number of officers receiving firearms training so that just two out of each five officers were able to use firearms: 30 per cent would have been trained in the Bushmaster rifle, but not the Glock pistol.

But the police force put the plan on hold in May and Mr Broad said there would be a review of who would get firearms training.

In April Police Association president Greg O'Connor said that seven police officers had been shot, two fatally, in the last two years and front-line police needed to have firearms in their cars so they could get to them immediately when they were faced with an armed offender.

He called on Mr Broad to authorise every front-line patrol car to carry a Glock pistol in a locked gun safe between the driver and passenger.

He repeated the call in July, after police dog Gage was shot dead and two officers were wounded in during a routine inquiry at Phillipstown in Christchurch.

Dog-handler Senior Constable Bruce Lamb, 51, was shot in the jaw and Constable Mitchel Alatalo, 39, was shot in the upper thigh on July 13.

- NZPA