IR-01-25-5163
6 March 2025
Dr. Emmy Rākete
[FYI request #30054 email]
Tēnā koe Emmy
Request for information
Thank you for your Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) request dated 12 February 2025.
You requested data for police officers injured, killed and involved with firearms.
My response to each part of your request can be found below.
1. In the last ten years, how often has a police officer been injured with a firearm?
2. In the last ten years, how often has a police officer been injured in any manner
other than with a firearm?
Table 1 below shows the number of incidents where a police officer has been injured
with/by a firearm or in another manner by a motivated offender. Please note that the
information is provided only for the last five years. This is due to how the specific category
for motivated offender injuries is classified. Prior to this, the data is not comparable,
so your request for data prior to 2020 is therefore refused under section 18(g) of the OIA,
as the information is not held.
Table 1. Incidents with Injury/Il ness due to Motivated Offender – Firearm and Other
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
Total
Firearm
3
7
4
8
3
1
26
Knife
9
8
5
4
8
2
36
Other weapon
20
46
146
38
45
11
306
No weapon
483
416
476
487
569
49
2,480
Total
515
477
631
537
625
63
2,848
3. In the last ten years, how often has a police officer been kil ed with a firearm?
There is a memorial page
1 on the Police website remembering police officers that have
lost their lives during the course of their duties or by criminal acts. There has been one
police officer in the last ten years that has been died as a result of a firearm, and that
occurred on 19 June 2020.
1 https://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/history-and-museum/memorial/officers-killed-
criminal-acts
Police National Headquarters 180 Molesworth Street. PO Box 3017, Wellington 6140, New Zealand.
Telephone: 04 474 9499. Fax: 04 498 7400. www.police.govt.nz
4. In the last ten years, how often has a police officer been kil ed in any manner
other than with a firearm?
There has been one other police officer in the last ten years that has died as a result of
injuries sustained during the course of their duties, that occurred on 1 January 2025.
5. In the last ten years, how many incidents attended by police involved firearms?
6. In the last ten years, what proportion of incidents attended by police involved
firearms?
Statistics on the involvement of weapons in incidents attended by Police is published in
Police’s Recorded Crime Victims Statistics (RCVS) col ection and is available at
Policedata.nz. Details can be found in the
Weapons used field with an option for
Firearms. The standard for recording the use of weapons used during the commission of
an offence is described in the National Recording Standard (NRS) s 6.4.19.
Please note that as part of its commitment to openness and transparency, Police
proactively releases some information and documents that may be of interest to the
public. An anonymised version of this response may be publicly released on the
New Zealand Police website.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this
decision. Information about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
Nāku noa, nā
Superintendent Mel Aitken
Director, Safer People
New Zealand Police
