Armed man’s captor praised

Press, 24 June 1985, Page 1

Armed man’s captor praised

The head of the Christchurch district police has praised the “extreme bravery” of a constable who tackled and captured an armed fugitive at Port Levy on Saturday evening. “The constable showed extreme bravery in tackling an armed offender in such difficult terrain and circumstances, and showed continuing resourcefulness, courage, and skill in finally overpowering a very determined assailant,” said Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Jamieson yesterday. The incident was the culmination of several days of police activity on Banks Peninsula after a man armed with a rifle threatened a woman at her farm homestead in Decanter Bay, near Little Akaloa, at 3 p.m. last Thursday. The man took Mrs Jill Harris’s station waggon, which was later found abandoned at nearby Menzies Bay. A homestead at Menzies Bay was burgled and a Land-Rover taken, which was found later about I.skm away. The police are not saying what the armed man’s movements were after that, but it is believed that a dinghy was reported missing from Annandale, a homestead in Pigeon Bay. The police armed offenders squad and other police worked with an R.N.Z.A.F. Iroquois helicopter since Thursday afternoon searching areas where the fugitive could have been hiding. v x As part of the search, two constables were patrolling Port Levy on Saturday evening when they called at

an empty farmhouse at Putiki. Mr Jamieson said the men found the gate to the property locked and so left their vehicle there and walked down about 500 metres to the house. The house, although empty, is used intermittently. Mr Jamieson said that when the two constables found a broken window they paused to get assistance. One constable went back to the car to call reinforce-

ments while the other took shelter behind a tree to watch the property, Mr Jamieson said. “He heard a noise from behind the building, and then a few minutes later heard what he thought was a boat banging on rocks nearby. The constable moved forward to investigate, and in pitch darkness made his way slowly down a track to the water’s edge. “He saw a man who was

carrying a rifle across his back. When the constable got close to him, he shone his spotlight on the man and called on him to ‘freeze’ and lie on his stomach. By this time, the constable had drawn his police issue .38 pistol. -The man, at first, crouched down in a kneeling position, but refused to lie flat and said, ‘You aren’t going to take me. I’m not going back again.’

“The constable reached the man and endeavoured to force him flat on the ground so that handcuffs could be S" >d, but the man reviolently and pulled the strap of the rifle from his chest so that he could lift the rifle over his head. “The constable hit the man over the head with his spotlight but this .did not appear to have any effect and so he hit him a second time, and on this occasion he only briefly dazed the man, but this did not stop the latter from freeing the rifle and bringing it forward towards the constable,” Mr Jamieson said.

“A struggle ensued in which the man attempted to point the rifle at the constable, but the constable took hold of the barrel and pushed it away from his person. During this very tense fight both men struggled to the point of exhaustion on several occasions. There were actually lulls in the struggle when neither was able to attain the ascendancy. “The man made a further attempt to bring the rifle round to point at the constable’s side, and said, ‘lt’s you or me.’ The constable felt that his life was threatened and he brought up his revolver and fired one shot into the side of the man’s leg. The rifle came free at that point in the constable’s hand, and he threw it into the water,” Mr Jamieson said.

The fight did not end there as the man picked up a big piece of driftwood and struck some blows, one of which hit the constable on the head.

“The two men grappled again and fell to the ground. The man was threatening to use his knife on the constable and the constable struck him with the butt of his pistol, and after a further struggle handcuffed him,” Mr Jamieson said. He said the police had taken possession of a knife found near the scene, another knife found nearby, and a piece of wood about 1 metre long and about Bcm thick. Mr Jamieson described the site of the struggle as a rocky section of the shoreline in a very remote area of Banks Peninsula. The captured man was last evening reported in a stable condition in hospital. Mr Jamieson said he expected the man to be discharged tomorrow. He would not say what charges the man would face. A police inquiry into the shooting and the events beforehand is under way. The officer in charge of the inquiry is Detective Inspector Neville Stokes. Mr Jamieson confirmed that a boat had been found near the place where the constable apprehended the man, and that it had been moved, but would give no further detail about it. He declined also to name the gunman but earlier the police had said that an escaper from Rolleston Prison might be the man they were looking for, Dwayne Thomas Tito, aged 22, who escaped on May 27. Tito was a patient in Christchurch Hospital last evening, where his condition was listed as fairly comfortable.