Hamilton man Joel Robin Buckley was shot dead by police after he began firing at them using his illegally-owned AK47-style firearm outside his O'Donohue St apartment in July 2021. Photo / NZ Police
Hamilton man Joel Robin Buckley was shot dead by police after he began firing at them using his illegally-owned AK47-style firearm outside his O'Donohue St apartment in July 2021. Photo / NZ Police
”I immediately guessed it would have involved Mr [Joel Robin] Buckley,” the officer told a Hamilton coroner’s inquest into the 42-year-old’s death in 2021.
Buckley was shot dead by police in his car after firing on them with his AK47-style firearm when they came to speak to him about claims he owned illegal firearms and had been threatening his estranged wife’s new partner.
An Independent Police Conduct Authority report into his death found the fatal shooting was justified, but there were “significant” firearm licensing failures, including giving back a seized weapon to the shooter and not acting on earlier concerning behaviour.
The report outlined how during a counselling session Buckley’s estranged wife revealed her former partner had been making threats to kill or seriously injure her new partner and intended to die in an armed confrontation with police.
The counsellor phoned police but was not contacted for a further 66 hours after the call taker wrongly coded the call as a less urgent matter. The IPCA found that police failed to respond in a timely manner.
Now an inquest is under way into Buckley’s death with Coroner Bruce Hesketh stating his objective was to determine the circumstances leading up to the shooting.
He said while he didn’t disagree with the IPCA’s findings, they didn’t look into the circumstances leading up to the shooting which his inquiry would do.
“That is the domain of the coroner’s court overall, the purpose is to find out what happened,” Coroner Hesketh said.
‘He looked quite dishevelled’
McQuilkin and a colleague went to visit Buckley at his apartment on an unrelated matter six months earlier. He told the coroner he was so concerned about Buckley’s behaviour that he recorded a video on his cellphone, the first and only time he’s ever done so in his 11-year policing career.
Buckley opened the door looking “quite dishevelled”, wearing two singlets, and struggling to hold himself up. He was leaning on the door as his eyes rolled around his head. His speech was also at times mumbled.
He was, however, polite, and when McQuilkin asked him if he was unwell he replied he had been sleeping as he’d just finished a truck driving night shift.
“In my opinion, Mr Buckley didn’t appear to be mentally sound, sober, or someone fit to have a licence.”
McQuilkin, who had worked in the firearms licensing office a year earlier, then sent the video to three members of the firearms licensing team the following morning.
A senior firearms licensing officer replied and said she recognised Buckley from an earlier buy-back scheme event.
An aerial view of the scene on O'Donohue St outside Joel Buckley's apartment where he was shot dead by police in July 2021.
The buy-back scheme, which aimed to collect newly prohibited military-style firearms, was initiated in February 2021 after the Christchurch mosque shootings that left 51 dead.
In her email, the firearms officer described him as an “interesting character”.
When McQuilkin and his colleague returned to Buckley’s apartment two weeks later, he seemed “much more awake and coherent but still came across as an unusual character”, he said.
On July 13, the day before the shooting, he then got an email from the same firearms officer stating she’d had a phone call from Buckley’s former partner that he was now mentally unstable, possessed prohibited firearms, was making threats against her, and her new partner and comments about dying “suicide by cop”.
She wanted McQuilkin’s help but he told her he was busy on another investigation.
On the morning of July 15, he was reading the morning news online when he noticed a story about a police shooting on O’Donohue St.
“I immediately guessed it would have involved Mr Buckley.”
Coroner’s counsel Chris Gudsell asked McQuilkin whether he would have expected there to have been “at least” an investigation about Buckley’s behaviour that day by the firearms unit.
