Napier shooting: Three police killed in a year brings NZ on par with US

Greg O'Connor. Photo / Alan Gibson

The slaying of Senior Constable Len Snee brings to three the number of police officers killed in the past year, putting the country's cop killing statistics on a par with America.

"That's high for a year. There is no pill we can take that will fix everything overnight," NZ Police Association president Greg O'Connor said.

A Police Association survey completed by half the country's officers found 67 per cent had been threatened with a weapon in the past year and 11 per cent threatened with a firearm.

"There's a hell of a lot of near misses out there per year but this wasn't a near miss," he said. "We've now had three police officers slain on duty this year. "We're now, anecdotally, getting up around American stats per head on a yearly basis."

Police Minister Judith Collins said: "I know that the New Zealand Police are greatly respected and I believe one of the reasons is their style of policing.

"I think we should wait until the facts of what has actually happened come out because ... the view from what we could see is arming the police would not necessarily have saved anybody."

Prime Minister John Key said: "We now need to collect the full facts around what happened so we can begin to focus on what we can learn from this."