Deportee shot dead by NZ police had violent crime history in Australia
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Wellington: A man shot by police on New Zealand’s South Island last week is believed to have been deported from Australia in 2012 due to a history of violent offending, Stuff understands.
According to police, Tane Wipa was shot once after threatening his partner with a weapon. Stuff understands he was holding a screwdriver to her neck.
Police blocked off Coast Rd, Wainuiomata, South Island during the several hours-long stand-off.Credit: The Post/Stuff
He died at the scene despite police providing medical assistance. The woman involved was not injured.
Wipa was deported back to NZ under the Australian Migration Act, after years of offending. He first appeared in the criminal courts at the age of 14, according to his Immigration and Citizenship hearing in Australia, which described the most concerning aspect of his case to be the continued offending and the violence involved in his crimes.
“Mr Wipa’s assertion that he is a “Weet-Bix kid” does not persuade me when the evidence does not do so”, Senior Council P E Hack, appearing for the then Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, said.
Wipa’s offending started with a charge of “dishonesty”, before escalating to violent crimes such as assault.
NZ Police Superintendent Corrie Parnell said the man was acting in an ‘agitated’ manner when police shot him once.Credit: The Post/Stuff
The worst of which, described in his visa hearing, was when Wipa spat in the faces of police and ambulance officers with a mouthful of blood, at a time when he was infected with Hepatitis C.
On those counts, he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, but he was immediately released on parole, having spent 297 days in pre-sentence custody.
His offending also included assaulting a young person with a piece of metal piping that had a sharp end and taking their car, before pulling over and assaulting another youth with a steering lock. They had to get stitches for a “significant laceration” to the head.
Wipa has at least two children, according to the 2012 decision, but did not have much contact with either of them at the time of his deportation because he was in prison for much of their lives.
“There is every reason to think that Mr Wipa will go on committing further offences leading to longer and longer sentences of imprisonment with the necessary consequence of less involvement on Mr Wipa ’s part in the raising of the children,” the hearing documents read.
Wellington District Commander Superintendent Corrie Parnell previously said police engaged in “extensive negotiations” as the situation evolved on Thursday.
Cordons were put up over a wide stretch of Coast Rd, Wainuiomata, with locals being turned away by police as they negotiated with Wipa.
“Verbal appeals” were made, but police weren’t able to resolve the situation, he said.
At around 1pm, police shot the man once. This was the only shot fired, police said.
Parnell stressed that the man had been behaving in an agitated state.
His family is now fundraising to travel to New Zealand for the funeral and then bring his body back to Australia, where he lived from the age of four.
This is a Public Interest Journalism funded role through NZ On Air.
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