Police tell of capture of alleged gunman
Details of a police dog’s capture of the alleged WINZ gunman in a macrocarpa hedge near Ashburton have been presented in evidence in the High Court at Christchurch.
Constable Reuben William Whalley, a police dog handler who deployed with Armed Offenders’ Squad members from Christchurch and Timaru, gave the evidence on the sixth day of the trial of Russell John Tully.
The trial had heard evidence by a farmer near Ashburton who had sighted a man in a paddock near Terrace Road, near the Ashburton River, on the afternoon of September 1, 2014, the day of the multiple shootings at the WINZ offices. The man had a backpack, and a bike over his shoulder.
The farmer then reported the sighting to the police.
Constable Whalley told of being sent to the area near Terrace Road, and later Lake Hood, and then returning to the Terrace Road area.
He saw a bike hidden in a macrocarpa hedge. When he got police dog Luka out of the van, the dog indicated there was a person inside the 4m wide hedge. The constable then called for assistance.
“We were in a very vulnerable position, out in the open,” he told the court. “We had no real cover at our location.”
When other officers arrived, he yelled a challenge. He called out: “Police dog handler. I have a dog. Come out now or the dog will be deployed and he will bite you.”
There was no response to the challenge so he then jumped the fence beside the hedge and told the dog to “rowse”.
“The dog then went forward and I heard screaming coming from the hedge,” said Constable Whalley. He then called out “Contact”, to the rest of the police section.
He asked the person to show himself. All he could see was a boot sticking out of the hedge so he dragged him out. The person was struggling with the police dog who had seized his leg. He was trying to gouge the dog’s eyes and wrench his jaws open.
Constable Whalley called out for him to stop struggling with the dog, and then two members of the police squad jumped over the fence and assisted in handcutting the man. The dog was then removed from him and first aid was administered. Two members of the squad were trained in first aid.
Tully, 49, is on trial for the murders of Peggy Turuhira Noble and Susan Leigh Cleveland and the attempted murder of Lindy Louise Curtis and Kim Elizabeth Adams, in a shotgun shooting at the Ashburton Work and Income NZ office on September 1, 2014.
He is also charged with setting a man trap – a steel wire stretched between two trees – and unlawful possession of two shotguns.
Tully, who was not in court today, has no lawyer of his own is represented in court by two amicus curiae (friends of the court), James Rapley and Phil Shamy. Andrew McRae and Mark Zarifeh represent the Crown.
Category: Focus
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
Connect
Connect with us via: