Post by bingbong on Sept 27, 2007 11:42:36 GMT 12
[Police gunned down Man in front of friends]
The Press | Thursday, 27 September 2007
LATEST: A man gunned down by police last night in front of friends took 25 minutes to die, senior officers have revealed.
Were you there? Call The Press on (03) 364-8494 or email us
At an early morning press conference, police said the 37-year-old man, whose identity has not been released, was shot by an officer following a domestic incident.
The man was shot about 8.36pm on Stanmore Road and died shortly after 9pm, police district commander Sandra Manderson said.
The man's family in the North Island have been informed of his death.
Police were called to the incident at a house off Avonside Drive, Linwood, at 8.26pm.
A man was reported to be smashing a flat where he lived with a hammer.
The man left the house and walked to nearby Stanmore Road.
Police found the man attacking a vehicle on Stanmore Road, still armed with a hammer.
Manderson said the two officers were called to the incident, one of them armed.
Officers gave the man a verbal warning but the man continued to make threats against them.
SERIOUS THREAT
Manderson said the police officer who shot the man felt his life was "under serious threat". Manderson said the man was threatening serious harm to the police officer.
"Obviously they were serious threats ... serious enough for a shooting to take place. Obviously very serious," she said.
Police were trying to confirm if other weapons were involved.
"At this stage I'm only aware of the hammer ... but we're doing inquiries. There's a possibility other weapons were involved," she said.
Manderson said she was unaware if the officer who shot the man had attempted to use pepper spray on him first.
Asked if a taser might have been a better option had one been available, she said: "I can't comment, because I wasn't there. Of course it would be much preferable if the person wasn't dead."
An email circulated by a Christchurch police officer calling for police to shoot offenders armed with knives had no connection to last night's shooting, Manderson said.
Police are investigating the original source of the email, which included graphic pictures in a bid to get police officers to wear their stab-resistant vests and the words: "If you've got a knife, then you should die ... period."
"It's certainly unfortunate (the shooting) happened, but it's got no relationship to the email whatsoever," Manderson said.
The man's body is still lying, covered, on the road this morning and police hope to have it removed by this afternoon.
INQUIRY LAUNCHED
The officer involved in the incident is still being interviewed by police and has not been stood down.
Manderson said a homicide inquiry and a Police Complaints Authority (PCA) inquiry had begun into the incident.
"The homicide inquiry will be run parallel to the Police Complaints Authority inquiry using separate teams of staff," she said.
The PCA staff were due in Christchurch this morning.
EYE-WITNESS ACCOUNT
Last night, a neighbour, who did not want to be identified, said four shots were fired.
"We heard sounds like the dull thud of a panel being hit and then a car alarm going off. "There were more thuds and then the four shots," he said.
When he looked out the window there was a body in the road.
"I could see him lying in the road and then they put a sheet over him later. I heard the guy across the road saying Steve had been shot."
The neighbour, who had experience with firearms, said the shots sounded like a light-calibre pistol.
Three ambulances attended the scene but a spokesman said nobody was taken to hospital.
Another neighbour said the police told all the residents to go inside because the area was now a crime scene.
Manderson said she had asked for the police kaumatua, the Rev Maurice Gray, to ensure the cultural process of tapu lifting would be carried out correctly when the scene examination was complete.
Last night's victim was the 21st killed by police since 1941.
The last to die before this incident was Haidar Ebbadi Mahdi, 37, shot by a police officer at his home in Auckland in August 2004.
Mahdi was killed as he held his wife in a choke hold with a knife at her throat.
The policeman who fired the shot had already been stabbed by Mahdi.
Police were later cleared of any wrongdoing in the shooting.
'Us cops don't get paid enough to go home in a box' [Police said at seen.]
By IAN STEWARD - The Press | Friday, 28 September 2007
"Why did you shoot my friend?" five-year-old Jayden Prior asked a policeman moments after he had watched him fire at Christchurch man Stephen Bellingham. "Us cops don't get paid enough to go home in a box," was the answer Jayden's older brother and father say they heard.
[What an attitude when some one was just killed, no sence of the saliency of the moment, the death of the person, the shock for those who new him and the devastation for a child hearing that. The insensitivity is not insignificant here, compounded with more information coming out ie several shots. ]
The Prior family – father Kenneth and three children – were metres away from family friend Bellingham when he was shot on Wednesday night.
Bellingham, 37, was armed with a claw-hammer and fuelled by what friends said were party pills when he arrived at Stanmore Road.
Among the conflicting reports of what happened on the suburban street shortly after 8.36pm, Kenneth Prior said there were seven or eight shots.
Other witnesses reported hearing four shots. The police said several were fired, with Bellingham struck by two bullets – one in the leg and one, fatally, in the chest.
Police were called to Bellingham's house on the corner of Trent Street and Avonside Drive after receiving reports he had smashed up several cars nearby.
Kenneth Prior and his children – Jayden, five, Makayla, 10, and AJ, 13 – were driving down Stanmore Road when they saw Bellingham breaking into a parked Subaru Impreza with a claw hammer.
Prior said he and AJ approached Bellingham, who was sitting in the car's passenger seat, and tried to persuade him to stop.
Prior said Bellingham had been awake for three nights on party pills and was "obviously wasted".
He said a policeman, aged between 30 and 40, arrived some moments later in a police van.
"He hopped out and yelled, `Put the hammer down' about five times."
Prior then alleged that Bellingham, whom he described as "quite calm", took a step toward the policeman with the hammer raised.
Prior claimed that: "Then the cop just shot him dead."
Prior alleged that after the shooting the police did not check the body. Police deny this.
Chris Young, the older brother of Jane, who was killed in the Edgeware Road tragedy in May, had a different account.
He had driven around the block after a clearly "agitated" Bellingham had tried to get into his car. He hoped he would have left by the time he returned.
But he arrived back outside his new flat just in time to see the incident unfold, parking beside the police car.
"It happened really quickly – the man charged at the police officer with both arms on the hammer raised above his head and he was only one to 1<<1/2 metres from the officer when he fired," Young said.
"He was definitely running aggressively, obviously intending on beating the police officer with it.
"I've heard people today saying he had his hands by his side and wasn't moving and that's b......, 100 per cent inaccurate," he said.
"The proof of it was after he was shot and let go of the hammer it continued travelling, skidding along the road – that proves he was running with the hammer above his head."
Young said he did not think the policeman was left with any other option.
"Really, the police officer was left with no choice whatsoever.
"I could hear by the tone of his voice he was trying to calm the man down and subdue the situation. But the man ignored that and ignored the gun pointed at him."
Young said the way he perceived the officer had reacted had given him more faith in the police.
"The way I saw the officer handle the situation I feel a lot safer now. I feel like he did his job to the best of his abilities."
Canterbury district commander Superintendent Sandra Manderson said the officer was one of three present, and the body was "checked" after the shooting but Bellingham had died "almost instantly".
Witness Keiran Cross said he saw the shooting as he was driving into his driveway and Bellingham did not appear to be threatening the officer.
Cross said he saw Bellingham moving after he had been shot.
"He moved within a couple of minutes of being shot but no one checked him for about 10 minutes," Cross said.
"He moved his hand, then moved his arm up and then moved his hand back. It was quite slow. Definitely not a twitch."
Manderson said Bellingham was shot after he walked towards the officer with his arms and the hammer in the air.
The officer warned him and then fired "several shots".
Note in [ ] my views. I am not anti Police I am Pro clean Professional Police
The Press | Thursday, 27 September 2007
LATEST: A man gunned down by police last night in front of friends took 25 minutes to die, senior officers have revealed.
Were you there? Call The Press on (03) 364-8494 or email us
At an early morning press conference, police said the 37-year-old man, whose identity has not been released, was shot by an officer following a domestic incident.
The man was shot about 8.36pm on Stanmore Road and died shortly after 9pm, police district commander Sandra Manderson said.
The man's family in the North Island have been informed of his death.
Police were called to the incident at a house off Avonside Drive, Linwood, at 8.26pm.
A man was reported to be smashing a flat where he lived with a hammer.
The man left the house and walked to nearby Stanmore Road.
Police found the man attacking a vehicle on Stanmore Road, still armed with a hammer.
Manderson said the two officers were called to the incident, one of them armed.
Officers gave the man a verbal warning but the man continued to make threats against them.
SERIOUS THREAT
Manderson said the police officer who shot the man felt his life was "under serious threat". Manderson said the man was threatening serious harm to the police officer.
"Obviously they were serious threats ... serious enough for a shooting to take place. Obviously very serious," she said.
Police were trying to confirm if other weapons were involved.
"At this stage I'm only aware of the hammer ... but we're doing inquiries. There's a possibility other weapons were involved," she said.
Manderson said she was unaware if the officer who shot the man had attempted to use pepper spray on him first.
Asked if a taser might have been a better option had one been available, she said: "I can't comment, because I wasn't there. Of course it would be much preferable if the person wasn't dead."
An email circulated by a Christchurch police officer calling for police to shoot offenders armed with knives had no connection to last night's shooting, Manderson said.
Police are investigating the original source of the email, which included graphic pictures in a bid to get police officers to wear their stab-resistant vests and the words: "If you've got a knife, then you should die ... period."
"It's certainly unfortunate (the shooting) happened, but it's got no relationship to the email whatsoever," Manderson said.
The man's body is still lying, covered, on the road this morning and police hope to have it removed by this afternoon.
INQUIRY LAUNCHED
The officer involved in the incident is still being interviewed by police and has not been stood down.
Manderson said a homicide inquiry and a Police Complaints Authority (PCA) inquiry had begun into the incident.
"The homicide inquiry will be run parallel to the Police Complaints Authority inquiry using separate teams of staff," she said.
The PCA staff were due in Christchurch this morning.
EYE-WITNESS ACCOUNT
Last night, a neighbour, who did not want to be identified, said four shots were fired.
"We heard sounds like the dull thud of a panel being hit and then a car alarm going off. "There were more thuds and then the four shots," he said.
When he looked out the window there was a body in the road.
"I could see him lying in the road and then they put a sheet over him later. I heard the guy across the road saying Steve had been shot."
The neighbour, who had experience with firearms, said the shots sounded like a light-calibre pistol.
Three ambulances attended the scene but a spokesman said nobody was taken to hospital.
Another neighbour said the police told all the residents to go inside because the area was now a crime scene.
Manderson said she had asked for the police kaumatua, the Rev Maurice Gray, to ensure the cultural process of tapu lifting would be carried out correctly when the scene examination was complete.
Last night's victim was the 21st killed by police since 1941.
The last to die before this incident was Haidar Ebbadi Mahdi, 37, shot by a police officer at his home in Auckland in August 2004.
Mahdi was killed as he held his wife in a choke hold with a knife at her throat.
The policeman who fired the shot had already been stabbed by Mahdi.
Police were later cleared of any wrongdoing in the shooting.
'Us cops don't get paid enough to go home in a box' [Police said at seen.]
By IAN STEWARD - The Press | Friday, 28 September 2007
"Why did you shoot my friend?" five-year-old Jayden Prior asked a policeman moments after he had watched him fire at Christchurch man Stephen Bellingham. "Us cops don't get paid enough to go home in a box," was the answer Jayden's older brother and father say they heard.
[What an attitude when some one was just killed, no sence of the saliency of the moment, the death of the person, the shock for those who new him and the devastation for a child hearing that. The insensitivity is not insignificant here, compounded with more information coming out ie several shots. ]
The Prior family – father Kenneth and three children – were metres away from family friend Bellingham when he was shot on Wednesday night.
Bellingham, 37, was armed with a claw-hammer and fuelled by what friends said were party pills when he arrived at Stanmore Road.
Among the conflicting reports of what happened on the suburban street shortly after 8.36pm, Kenneth Prior said there were seven or eight shots.
Other witnesses reported hearing four shots. The police said several were fired, with Bellingham struck by two bullets – one in the leg and one, fatally, in the chest.
Police were called to Bellingham's house on the corner of Trent Street and Avonside Drive after receiving reports he had smashed up several cars nearby.
Kenneth Prior and his children – Jayden, five, Makayla, 10, and AJ, 13 – were driving down Stanmore Road when they saw Bellingham breaking into a parked Subaru Impreza with a claw hammer.
Prior said he and AJ approached Bellingham, who was sitting in the car's passenger seat, and tried to persuade him to stop.
Prior said Bellingham had been awake for three nights on party pills and was "obviously wasted".
He said a policeman, aged between 30 and 40, arrived some moments later in a police van.
"He hopped out and yelled, `Put the hammer down' about five times."
Prior then alleged that Bellingham, whom he described as "quite calm", took a step toward the policeman with the hammer raised.
Prior claimed that: "Then the cop just shot him dead."
Prior alleged that after the shooting the police did not check the body. Police deny this.
Chris Young, the older brother of Jane, who was killed in the Edgeware Road tragedy in May, had a different account.
He had driven around the block after a clearly "agitated" Bellingham had tried to get into his car. He hoped he would have left by the time he returned.
But he arrived back outside his new flat just in time to see the incident unfold, parking beside the police car.
"It happened really quickly – the man charged at the police officer with both arms on the hammer raised above his head and he was only one to 1<<1/2 metres from the officer when he fired," Young said.
"He was definitely running aggressively, obviously intending on beating the police officer with it.
"I've heard people today saying he had his hands by his side and wasn't moving and that's b......, 100 per cent inaccurate," he said.
"The proof of it was after he was shot and let go of the hammer it continued travelling, skidding along the road – that proves he was running with the hammer above his head."
Young said he did not think the policeman was left with any other option.
"Really, the police officer was left with no choice whatsoever.
"I could hear by the tone of his voice he was trying to calm the man down and subdue the situation. But the man ignored that and ignored the gun pointed at him."
Young said the way he perceived the officer had reacted had given him more faith in the police.
"The way I saw the officer handle the situation I feel a lot safer now. I feel like he did his job to the best of his abilities."
Canterbury district commander Superintendent Sandra Manderson said the officer was one of three present, and the body was "checked" after the shooting but Bellingham had died "almost instantly".
Witness Keiran Cross said he saw the shooting as he was driving into his driveway and Bellingham did not appear to be threatening the officer.
Cross said he saw Bellingham moving after he had been shot.
"He moved within a couple of minutes of being shot but no one checked him for about 10 minutes," Cross said.
"He moved his hand, then moved his arm up and then moved his hand back. It was quite slow. Definitely not a twitch."
Manderson said Bellingham was shot after he walked towards the officer with his arms and the hammer in the air.
The officer warned him and then fired "several shots".
Note in [ ] my views. I am not anti Police I am Pro clean Professional Police
