A Coroner, Michael Robb, has decided a police person was deliberate in shooting a man armed with a Wrench, useful as a club and a slasher, again quite effective, even up to lethal, as a weapon, twice in the abdomen in a street incident on Te Ngai Road Rotorua, after the Person, a Mr Stephens, had seriously smashed a Police car with a piece of Gym equipment.

Relatively easy and quite simple for Mr Coroner Robb, sitting in his court Room surrounded by relative security that prevails in such locations, to rule objectively on a rather chaotic situation on a Rotorua main access route.

As preparation for inquiring into and analysing such fast moving incidents, maybe a potential coroner could spend a bit of time, after suitable pre-engagement training, accompanying police responding to such incidents where lightning decisions must be made in assessing just what is being confronted.

How large and athletic is the perpetrator? Is the person acting rationally? Is there a likelihood of performance enhancing drugs, say amphetamines, involved? Is the confronting person affected by alcohol? Is there a previous predilection the arm to hand will be used? Just how damaging will be the use of those weapons?

You get my drift.

As a first responder of some 14 years service we had very little training in assessing danger beyond abandoning equipment that may be attractive to a perpetrator, and make exit a primary tactic.

Now had Mr Stephens abandoned his weapon, stood still and raised his hands above his head, it would be unlikely he would have been shot. But so armed and whether advancing or not there was considerable potential danger present.

That the people who do the necessary work to try and maintain safety for all, who risk not going home at shift’s end, are subjected to such a ruling after the event by someone whose greatest danger at work is a paper cut, or more likely a RSI injury from playing solitaire on a work device, is so utterly inconsequential and potentially dispiriting it almost becomes humorous. Until one might just unpick exactly what the name suppressed officer was facing in a chaotic situation.