Bay of Plenty District Commander Superintendent Tim Anderson:

Police accept the findings by the Independent Police Conduct Authority into an incident involving an officer who tasered a man in the cells at Tauranga District Court in February 2019.

The man was waiting in the cells for his appearance and was agitated and disruptive. When it was time for him to be moved back to the custody unit at Tauranga Police Station he was uncooperative. At this point, our officer entered the cell and pointed the taser at the man while three Corrections officers tried to restrain him.

During this incident, the officer made the decision to taser the man three times as he believed he posed an imminent and serious threat to the staff.

Police self-reported this incident to the IPCA and carried out a criminal investigation. Following this, the officer was charged with three counts of assault with a weapon. He stood trial in July last year and was acquitted by a jury.

Police agrees with the findings by the IPCA and our decision to charge shows how seriously we treated this matter.

Police now have an ongoing employment investigation in relation to this incident and the officer remains on restricted duties. We are unable to comment further at this time.
 

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