New Zealand police were quick to tell us that the recent stolen firearms debacle in Palmerston North was a one-off. Well, it looks like the NZ Police have been failing to look after handed-in firearms for a while now.
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found multiple failings in respect of the disappearance of nine firearms which were held by Police in Auckland from 28 January 2017.
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It seems that a chap had been required to surrender his firearms due to a temporary protection order being issued against him. When the order was discharged, the man applied to get his firearms back, only to find that the police had lost them.
“It is not possible to determine what happened to Mr X’s firearms. Appropriate procedures were not in place to ensure surrendered firearms were properly received, registered, stored, and tracked. If the firearms were destroyed, arms officers failed to comply with procedures for destruction,” says Judge Colin Doherty, Authority Chair.
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The police have agreed to compensate Mr X for the missing firearms. A new process for handling seized and surrendered firearms has been implemented following a Waitemata District audit conducted in mid-2018 and a CCTV camera has been moved to ensure the entrance to the armoury is captured.
I wonder where those firearms are now? I doubt that they will have been destroyed as there is a record of that sort of thing normally, but then again if you can fail to log them in in the first place, I guess you can fail to log them as destroyed!
This is not a good look. How can our licensed firearms owners be sure that their confiscated, sorry I mean surrendered firearms, will be safe while they are waiting for the government to figure out how much cash they are going to hand over for them?
Come on New Zealand Police, lift your game, you’re better than this.