BY ANNALUCIA VERMUNT
AUCKLAND, New Zealand - "He was hunted like an animal, shot like an animal and left in a paddock for the night..All the police wanted him for was questioning -and we will never forgive the police for that, never." These were the words of Peter Thompson, speaking to 200 people at the funeral of his son-in-law, Terence Thompson.
Terrence Thompson was shot and killed by police June 24 after being found in an orchard where he had been living in a bivouac in the ground for several days. The 43-year-old Maori was hit by a single bullet in the chest fired by a police marksman.
Thompson had been the subject of a nine-week police and army manhunt following the shooting of a police constable in the East Coast city of Hastings April 21. The cops alleged Thompson often drove a car used at the constable's shooting, although he was never formally cited as a suspect during this time.
The hunt for Thompson involved 80 cops, including elite units armed with submachine guns and sniper rifles. They raided houses and conducted an extensive ground search throughout the predominately rural region and several times used a portable battering ram known as "the key" to enter houses.
Police and army helicopters flew armed cops into remote settlements, and on one occasion dropped camouflaged police snipers onto cliffs to cover a search of a truck and caravan belonging to a friend of Thompson. "We have had our doors kicked in by masked men and our families have been searched. Our children have been taken from their beds at gunpoint," said resident John Black.
Thompson's family had earlier expressed fears for his safety if he fell into the hands of the police. At a meeting at the Rongmaraeroa Marae April 28, they publicly called on the police to contact them when Thompson was found to allow them to help bring him out of hiding unharmed.
"We told the police from the outset that we wanted to be brought in the moment they had a sighting of Terence so that we could get him into negotiations with the police" said his uncle, Harry McGregor, after Thompson's death. "The police went out there and shot him, this is bloody revenge. Terence never had a chance."
Terence Thompson's death highlights an escalating number of fatal shootings by police in recent months. The 16th person to be shot dead by police since 1941, Thompson was the third person to be killed in the last ten months, with a fourth severely wounded after a police standoff in July last year. Another man, Matthew Innes, was suffocated to death in the back of a police car on his way to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital in 1994. No charges have been filed against the police in these cases.
At the funeral, Thompson's family vowed to fight to clear his name. "In the eyes of the law of the land, he is innocent until proven guilty, so the fight is now in our hands" said Peter Thompson. "We are going to fire the questions at the police now and we want plain facts."
Annalucia Vermunt is a member of the Engineers Union in Auckland.