{"id":552691,"date":"2026-07-31T08:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T08:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/552691\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T08:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T08:18:11","slug":"police-officer-shot-by-tom-phillips-to-return-to-work-on-light-duties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/552691\/","title":{"rendered":"Police officer shot by Tom Phillips to return to work on \u2018light duties\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the time it was reported the officer suffered a severe injury<\/a> to his skull, while a second shot caused significant damage to his right shoulder. <\/p>\n

Phillips was shot and killed shortly after by a second police officer. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe police officer shot by Tom Phillips with a powerful hunting rifle is set to return to work. Photo \/ NZ Police <\/p>\n

After the shootout, the officer underwent numerous surgeries and was discharged two and a half weeks later.<\/p>\n

The Herald previously reported the officer was probably saved by his car windscreen, which deflected the gunfire.<\/p>\n

\" Marks on the road show where Tom Phillips died in a shootout with police on Te Anga Rd, near Waitomo. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n

\u201cA miracle\u201d, \u201clucky to be alive\u201d and \u201cmillimetres from death\u201d were how multiple sources described the shooting of the constable.<\/p>\n

Last year, Minister of Police Mark Mitchell described the constable as a \u201cclassic Kiwi bloke\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s good farming stock, and he\u2019s definitely got that resilient sort of attitude. He worked really hard to get into the police. His family are proud of him, and we\u2019ll do all that we can to support them and support him, so that he can come back and do the job that he loves as a frontline police officer,\u201d Mitchell said. <\/p>\n

\"CatCat Christey described Phillips’ fascination with firearms and her struggles with the police. <\/p>\n

News of the officer\u2019s return to the force follows the mother of the Marokopa children speaking out against Phillips in her first public interview<\/a> since they were found.<\/p>\n

In an intervie with RNZ\u2019s Mata, Cat Christey described Phillips\u2019 fascination with firearms and her struggles with police<\/p>\n

She described the abuse she suffered, calling the former fugitive a \u201cdictator\u201d who kicked her out of her home after she twice called police on him.<\/p>\n

Christey said she objected to the Netflix documentary about the case.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the time it was reported the officer suffered a severe injury to his skull, while a second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,3595,6179,155366,2209,11782,106,42,32655,6804,14606,3234,130,43,10932,90,10936,675,17216,1527,162692,11791,10117,131,61,5134,40,38,41,39,102,4576],"class_list":["post-552691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-after","tag-by","tag-died","tag-duties","tag-father","tag-fugitive","tag-head","tag-headlines","tag-hunting","tag-light","tag-marokopa","tag-months","tag-more","tag-news","tag-officer","tag-on","tag-phillips","tag-police","tag-powerful","tag-return","tag-rifle","tag-shootout","tag-shot","tag-than","tag-to","tag-tom","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-with","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}