Officer cleared in fatal shooting

The Armed Offenders Squad attended the hostage drama in Whangarei where force used was 'not excessive'. File photo / Northern Advocate

A police officer who fatally shot a gun-wielding woman holding a man hostage did so because he believed she was about to shoot him.

The Whangarei Armed Offenders Squad member shot drug addict Lee Mettam, 37, with a single rifle shot to the chest in the doorway of a Vodafone shop on Reyburn St in Whangarei on October 23, 2008.

An Independent Police Conduct Authority report, released yesterday, found the member, referred to as Officer A, was justified in his actions "in light of the immediate threat of death or grievous bodily harm to himself and others, and he could not have reasonably protected himself or others in a less violent manner in the circumstances.

The force he used in those circumstances was not excessive."

Ms Mettam was addicted to heroin and LSD, was on a methadone programme and was a user of cannabis and methamphetamine as well as the prescription drug Rivotril.

She had been a heavy drug user since the age of 14, and had had previous run-ins with police, including threatening to kill and unlawful discharge of a firearm, the authority said.

About 9.30am on the day she was shot, Ms Mettam went to the shop to get money from an employee she knew, Dean Harrison.

She had been demanding money from him and his family for several days, and the previous day had assaulted his daughter and threatened to kill her if she went to the police.

When she discovered the man was not at work, she pointed her rifle at staff and demanded money and phones before grabbing shop assistant Son Taylor. She held him at gunpoint for about half an hour, threatening to shoot him.

When the AOS arrived, Officer A saw, through the shop window, Ms Mettam holding the man hostage, behaving erratically and at one stage pointing the gun at him.

When she appeared at the door, the officer and other AOS members appealed to her to put down her weapon.

But instead she raised her .177 calibre rifle and swung it towards Officer A, who was about 34m away. He fired a shot at her with his Ruger 7.62 bolt action marksman rifle.

The report found police breached some communications and control protocols, but this did not amount to misconduct and did not affect the outcome.

The breaches included an ambulance not being on standby at the beginning of the incident and the police officer in control of the incident not informing the police northern communications centre a shot had been fired.

Officer A, the senior AOS member, did not formulate a voice appeal plan before trying to communicate with Mettam, resulting in members shouting at her simultaneously.