New Zealand Police Have Shot Two People in One Week

New Zealand police shot and killed Nick Marshall on Tuesday night, during a drugs and weapons raid on a mechanic workshop in Frankton. The police say the 36-year-old Hamilton man's death was "unavoidable" while his girlfriend published an emotional post to Facebook saying Marshall was unarmed and sitting down to dinner when the Armed Offenders Squad burst in.

Then today, in an apparently unrelated incident, a machete-wielding man was shot twice by police near a busy shopping centre in Rotorua. St John Ambulance said the man has been taken to Rotorua Hospital in a serious condition.

Police shootings are not common in New Zealand but they are on the increase. According to New Zealand police, 31 people have been shot and killed by police since 1941. Marshall's shooting was the eleventh police shooting fatality in New Zealand since 2007.

Criminal barrister Michael Bott has called for police to wear body cameras, which would record incidents such as police shootings. In an interview with Radio New Zealand he highlighted the recent shootings by police of African American men in the US as examples of what video recordings of police behaviour can reveal. "Police video cameras often show depictions of events wildly different from the statements of police officers," said Bott.

Police Association president Greg O'Connor said wearing body cameras was a growing trend around the world and his organisation had no problem with introducing the method here.

In a news conference on Wednesday regarding Marshall's shooting, Assistant Commissioner Allan Boreham confirmed that the Independent Police Conduct Authority would be conducting an enquiry into the event, as standard procedure. "The absence of information is obviously very difficult for the family and it's difficult for the officers that have been involved in the shooting."

Assistant Commissioner Boreham said police were carrying out a search warrant investigating the supply of methamphetamine and firearms at the time.

"We're talking about an event that's happened very, very quickly, in a very confined area," said Boreham. "Despite the use of a loudhailer to announce that the police were here, police constantly calling that it was armed police and they were entering the premises, this person has obtained a long barreled firearm, and despite being called upon, has continued to present and as a result has been shot."

"On the information I have, this appears like it was unavoidable." But Kendyl Eadie, Marshall's girlfriend who resides at the premises and was there at the time of the shooting, insisted he wasn't armed. In a series of posts on Facebook, Eadie alleged the police stormed in and murdered her partner as they were just about to sit down to eat dinner. "He wasn't armed or threating [sic]," she wrote. "im in shock still cant beleive those who r suppose to serve and protect nz r cold blooded killers. I love u nick, r.i.f.p,"

Follow Max on Twitter.