The Star: November 30, 2023

Thursday November 30 2023 The Star
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
NEWS 7
Emergency response like trying to
put together 1000-piece jigsaw
• By Danielle Clent
A SENIOR police tactical
commander has likened the
emergency response to the
mosque terror attacks to trying
to put together a 1000-piece
jigsaw puzzle dumped upside
down on the floor.
The Armed Offenders Squad
officer, in the role of Zero-Alpha,
quickly moved from the squad
room to sit alongside incident
controller Senior Sergeant Roy
Appley in the Southern Communications
Centre as the crisis
unfolded on March 15, 2019.
The policeman told the inquest
into the deaths of 51 people murdered
at the Al Noor Mosque
and Linwood Islamic Centre that
he was working very hard.
“It was like someone had
dumped a thousand-piece jigsaw
on the floor and all those pieces
were upside down and each piece
of that jigsaw was a relevant
piece of information that we had
to know, but I’d pick each one of
them up and put it in the jigsaw
and try and figure out where it fit
within the picture,” he said.
“We tried our very best to pick
each piece up and put it where
REMEMBRANCE: Flowers outside Al Noor Mosque following the attack on March 15, 2019.
PHOTO: RNZ
it should go.”
The commander let an AOS
team leave the scene of the first
shooting at Al Noor Mosque for
Linwood, despite a police officer
saying there were already enough
people in Linwood Ave because
he believed there could be more
gunmen.
An AOS team leader previously
told the inquest he regretted
leaving injured victims at
Al Noor to attend the Linwood
scene.
The Zero-Alpha officer told
the Coroners Court yesterday he
heard over the police radio there
were six armed offenders at Linwood,
shots being fired at Eastgate
mall, while the terrorist had
falsely claimed there were nine
other shooters in Canterbury.
Given what had occurred at
Al Noor, the officer said the
possibility of six armed gunmen
at Linwood was a “catastrophic
thought”.
It was
“certainly my
thinking”
that more
than just one
tactical unit
was required
at Linwood, he
said.
Communication
between
AOS members
Brigitte
Windley
was not recorded during the terror
attack because their vehicle
had a flat battery and they could
not use the usual cassette tape
system. Recording the radio
channel no longer required using
a cassette tape.
Asked by deputy chief Coroner
Brigitte Windley what could
have made his job easier, the
officer said he wondered if the
presence of a St John commander
at the Southern Communications
Centre would have
helped.
He did not know if there was
much that could have been
done to improve his response,
although he did wish the AOS
tactical radio had been recorded.
The inquest continues.
– RNZ
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