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John Bisset / Stuff
Graeme Warren, from Kurow, photographed in 2011 taking emergency services to inspect the damage to Kurow bridges due to heavy rains and high river levels.
The actions of a police officer who shot and killed a man in North Otago last year were legally justified, the Independent Authority for Police Conduct found.
The officer shot 66-year-old Graeme Sydney Warren in Kurow on December 5, 2019.
The finding, released Tuesday, said the officer acted to defend himself and a colleague.
Warren’s son told police that his father was threatening suicide and could not find him.
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Two officers from nearby towns responded. One was a friend of Warrens, who believed he could convince him to “get out of the dark place he was in.”
The officer then found Warren at his home on Freyberg Ave in a depressed state, and was initially able to communicate with him.
The situation escalated when officers saw Warren carrying a rifle inside his home, the report says. They requested the Armed Offenders Brigade and a police negotiating team to attend, then the three officers established a cordon around the property and awaited their arrival.
A short time later, Warren left his home with his rifle and threatened one of the officers, pointing his rifle at him. He then turned and pointed his rifle at another officer, who then fired a shot at Warren, wounding him in the abdomen.
JOHN BISSET / THINGS
The scene of the police shooting on Freyberg Ave in Kurow in 2019.
Officers provided medical assistance, but Warren later died at Dunedin Hospital.
The authority found that the three officers correctly identified the increasing risks, worked together to cordon off and contain the scene, and requested assistance when the level of risk increased.
The authority’s chairman, Judge Colin Doherty, said officers “responded well” given the nature of the incident.
“They took a duly cautious approach given Mr. Warren’s state of mind and the risks of having a firearm,” he said.
“They did everything they could to stop Mr. Warren from taking his own life and then when they shot him they tried to save him.”
