A Day In the Life of Dave Pizzini
Detective Senior Sergeant Dave Pizzini is a busy man. He is rapidly achieving a reputation as the police officer of the moment to dish out warnings to those considering using force to defend themselves. Pizzini has now made two more high-profile arrests of people for using unreasonable force—one of those arrested is a highly regarded police officer.
Not content with his success at arresting Gilbert Road Discount Liquor store owner, Virender Singh earlier this month for defending himself and his family and his business with a hockey stick against knife-wielding thugs—an arrest for which he won widespread public acclaim—Pizzini had a busy day yesterday, making two more arrests of similar ilk.
One arrest followed an incident at a fairly remote farm at Mangatawhiri. Reports are sketchy, but apparently an armed intruder had entered the farmhouse early in the morning, threatening the life of the occupants—a mother and two children. The farmer—who happened to be a registered gun collector and a champion long range rifle shot—heard the screams from the implement shed in which he was working, about fifty metres away. His gun collection was kept in two large metal safes, with five inch walls in the implement shed.
He is reported to have opened one of the safes, remove a tripod mounted Sako with telescopic sights and take up a firing position about fifty metres from the house. He then called out, challenging the gunman to come out and leave the women and children alone. Eventually, the gunman emerged from the house, holding a three year old child by the arm. The gunman screamed obscenities at the farmer and told him to come forward or he would shoot the child.
The farmer took careful aim and shot the gunman through the chest, killing him instantly. When the police arrived, “reasonable defence” expert Dave Pizzini was called to the scene. Three hours later he arrested the farmer for using unreasonable force. The farmer will be charged with murder, and will appear in court tomorrow. He has interim name suppression.
“People just cannot point guns at other human beings and kill them, no matter what provocation they may be under,” said Pizzini. “The arrested man was a marksman and a gun collector. The dead man was carrying only a point 22 rifle. Using a marksman's telescopic sighted Sako against a point 22 rifle—which incidentally did not have telescopic sights and was 'sawn off'—is a case of using overwhelming and unreasonable force. The arrested farmer made no effort to negotiate or solve the situation by less violent means. People need to learn that they cannot take the law into their own hands like this,” Pizzini said.
But Senior Sergeant Pizzini's day was not over. Immediately after making the arrest, he was urgently called to Whangarei. Arriving by police helicopter two hours later, he was asked to assess the shooting of a distraught woman by an Armed Offenders Squad (“AOS”) member earlier that morning.
According to media reports, the woman had gone into a Vodafone store in the main street of Whangarei, presented a rifle and held one of the staff hostage, while others escaped out the backdoor. The AOS had surrounded the shop. Eventually the woman came out and confronted the police. She was challenged, aimed the rifle, and was promptly shot and killed by a single shot to the chest by an AOS sniper. The woman was carrying an air rifle.
After reviewing events, Senior Sergeant Dave Pizzini arrested the AOS member, who has name suppression. He will be charged with murder. The head of the Police Association, Greg O'Connor is livid—claiming that reasonable force had been used in the circumstances. Dave Pizzini promptly dismissed Mr O'Connor's opinion. He wanted to remind the Police Association and the public that the same standard for what constituted reasonable force applied both to the public and to sworn police officers.
While not wanting to prejudice the court case, he said there was prima facie evidence in this case that the force used had not been reasonable. The AOS had not made any attempt to negotiate with the offender. She only had an air rifle—and while these could be deadly at close range the nearest police officer was fifty metres away.
Police need to set an example, he said. “If sworn police officers were seen to be using unreasonable force, it would set a very bad example to the general public. Things would escalate out of hand, and we cannot allow that to happen. I feel very sorry for the arrested man's colleagues, but we have to be even handed and consistent in the way we deal with situations like this,” he said.
He also expressed condolences to the family of the shot victim. When asked whether he would like to send a message to the hostage and his colleagues, he said that he realised they had been through a terrible ordeal. However, they had to realise that they had acted in a provocative manner, and bore some of the blame in this situation. If they had offered no resistance, it would have likely had a calming affect on the deceased.
While they may not have intended it, when the colleagues of the hostage escaped out the back, it no doubt provoked the deceased, leading to the subsequent confrontation out in the street, and the tragic death of the woman. “They should have stayed where they were,” he said. Senior Sergeant Pizzini said that his inquiries were continuing and it was likely further charges would be laid. He was considering laying charges against the store workers who had fled out the back door, saying that they appeared to be “accessories before the fact” to murder. “These are very, very serious matters,” he said.
Police investigations are continuing: ten detectives and twenty constables have been assigned to the inquiry which is likely to take several weeks. Similar resources have been committed to the crime scene at Mangatawhiri. The Auckland regional police commander acknowledged that this would severely stretch police resources and would result in major delays in other investigations which had been underway, but which were now suspended indefinitely.
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