The New Zealand Police is the national police service and principal law enforcement agency of New Zealand, responsible for preventing crime, enhancing public safety, bringing offenders to justice, and maintaining public order. With over 15,000 personnel, it is the largest law enforcement agency in New Zealand and, with few exceptions, has primary jurisdiction over the majority of New Zealand criminal law. The New Zealand Police also has responsibility for traffic and commercial vehicle enforcement as well as other key responsibilities including protection of dignitaries, firearms licensing, and matters of national security.
Stewart Graeme Guthrie, GC was a New Zealand Police sergeant and a recipient of the George Cross, then the highest award in the British Commonwealth for conspicuous gallantry not in the face of an enemy. He received the award for his role in the police response to the Aramoana massacre, during which he lost his life.
The Aramoana massacre was a mass shooting that occurred on 13 November 1990 in the small seaside township of Aramoana, northeast of Dunedin, New Zealand. Resident David Gray killed 13 people, including local police Sergeant Stewart Guthrie, one of the first responders to the reports of a shooting, after a verbal dispute between Gray and his next-door neighbour. After a careful house-to-house search the next day, police officers led by the Anti-Terrorist Squad located Gray, and shot and injured him as he came out of a house firing from the hip. He died in an ambulance while being transported to hospital.
Aramoana is a small coastal settlement 27 kilometres (17 mi) north of Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand. The settlement's permanent population in the 2001 Census was 261. Supplementing this are seasonal visitors from the city who occupy cribs. The name Aramoana is Māori for "pathway of the sea".
The Armed Offenders Squad (AOS) are specialist part-time units of the New Zealand Police based around the country available to respond to high risk incidents using specialist tactics and equipment.
The Milperra Massacre, Milperra bikie shoot-out or Father's Day Massacre was a gunfight between rival motorcycle gang members on 2 September 1984, in Milperra, a south-western suburb of Sydney, New South Wales. The gunfight had its roots in the rivalry that developed after a group of Comancheros broke away and formed the first Bandidos Motorcycle Club chapter in Australia. Seven people were killed and twenty-eight injured and the event was a catalyst for significant changes to gun laws in New South Wales.
A shootout, also called a firefight, gunfight, or gun battle, is an armed confrontation entailing firearms between armed parties using guns, always entailing intense disagreement(s) between the fighting parties. The term can be used to describe any such fight, though it is typically used in a non-military context or to describe combat situations primarily using firearms.
Night of the Demons 3 is a 1997 Canadian comedy horror film directed by Jimmy Kaufman and starring Amelia Kinkade, Vlasta Vrána, Gregory Calpakis, Tara Slone, Christian Tessier, Joel Gordon, Larry Day, Kris Holden-Reid, Stephanie Bauder, and Patricia Rodriguez. It is the third and final film in the Night of the Demons series before the 2009 remake, and follows a group of teenagers who are pursued by the demon-possessed Angela Franklin while hiding out in Hull House on Halloween night.
Robert Sarkies is a New Zealand film director and screenwriter.
Military-style semi-automatic firearms in New Zealand are those semi-automatic firearms known in the United States as "assault weapons". The phrase is often abbreviated as military-style semi-automatic (MSSA). A New Zealand firearms licence-holder requires an E Category endorsement on their licence before they can possess this type of firearm, and a police-issued permit to procure each firearm is required. Arriving at a clear definition and common understanding of which semi-automatic firearms have a military-style configuration has dominated debate about gun-control legislation in New Zealand since 1992.
The Northern Illinois University shooting was a school shooting that took place on Thursday, February 14, 2008, at Northern Illinois University (NIU) in DeKalb, Illinois. Steven Kazmierczak, 27 years old and a 2006 NIU graduate, opened fire with a shotgun and three pistols in a crowd of students on campus, killing five students and injuring 17 more people, before fatally shooting himself.
The Covina massacre was a mass murder carried out on Christmas Eve, 2008 by a disgruntled ex-husband in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, 45, wearing a Santa suit, entered a property belonging to his former in-laws in Covina and killed nine people by shooting or by arson from the fire he started. Pardo was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot at his brother's residence in the early hours of Christmas Day.
The Carthage nursing home shooting was a mass shooting that occurred on March 29, 2009, when a gunman opened fire at Pinelake Health and Rehabilitation, a 120-bed nursing home in Carthage, North Carolina, United States. The shooter, 45-year-old Robert Kenneth Stewart, killed eight people, including a nurse at the home, and wounded a ninth. He was shot and apprehended by the responding police officer, who was also wounded by gunfire. It was the worst mass shooting in North Carolina's history.
The Napier shootings took place on 7 May 2009 in Napier, New Zealand. At around 9.30 am, Jan Molenaar fired on police officers executing a cannabis search warrant at his house at 41 Chaucer Road, killing Senior Constable Len Snee and seriously injuring senior constables Bruce Miller and Grant Diver. A neighbour attempting to assist the police was also shot.
Georgia Fabish is a New Zealand actress. She played in teen television series The Killian Curse and Paradise Café as well as appearing in Out of the Blue, a film depicting the 1990 Aramoana massacre in which a lone gunman murdered 13 people. She was nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category of the Qantas Film Awards for her role in Out of the Blue.
On June 7, 2013, a spree shooting occurred in Santa Monica, California. Its catalyst was a domestic dispute and subsequent fire at a home, followed by a series of shootings near and on the Santa Monica College campus. Six people were killed, including the suspect, and four injured. The shooter — 23-year-old John Zawahri — was killed by police officers when he exchanged gunfire with them at the Santa Monica College library.
The Washington Navy Yard shooting occurred on September 16, 2013, when 34-year-old Aaron Alexis fatally shot 12 people and injured three others in a mass shooting at the headquarters of the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), inside the Washington Navy Yard, in southeast Washington, D.C. The attack took place in the Navy Yard's Building 197; it began around 8:16 a.m. EDT and ended when police killed Alexis around 9:25 a.m. It is the deadliest mass shooting in Washington, D.C. history, as well as the second deadliest mass murder on a U.S. military base, behind the 2009 Fort Hood shooting.
On July 23, 2015, a mass shooting occurred at the Grand 16 movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, United States. John Russell Houser, 59, opened fire during a showing of the film Trainwreck, killing two people and injuring nine others before committing suicide.
On February 25, 2016, three people were killed and fourteen others injured in a series of shootings in Newton and Hesston, Kansas, including in and outside an Excel Industries building. The shooter, identified as Excel employee Cedric Larry Ford, was then killed by a responding police officer.
The 1991 New Zealand bravery awards were announced via a Special Honours List dated 19 December 1991. Twelve of the 33 recipients were recognised for acts of bravery during the Aramoana Massacre on 13 November 1990.
