{"id":592654,"date":"2026-09-07T06:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T06:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/592654\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T06:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T06:36:10","slug":"kaoss-price-shooting-mother-challenges-police-decision-not-to-prosecute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/592654\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaoss Price shooting: Mother challenges police decision not to prosecute"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now Price\u2019s mother Jillian Hana is challenging the police decision in July 2023 <\/a>not to charge the police officers \u2013 referred to as Officer A and B \u2013 involved in her son\u2019s shooting.<\/p>\n

In his opening remarks, Stevenson said it took police 15 months<\/a> to decide not to prosecute, sending Hana a two-page letter that summarised the decision in its last sentence. <\/p>\n

\u201cBased on an assessment of the circumstances and the law relating [to] self-defence and defence of another (section 48 of the Crimes Act), police have determined there is insufficient evidence to support a criminal prosecution of the officers involved in the incident.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevenson said: \u201cWe struggle to understand how taking 15 months for a decision, with the facts being relatively straightforward, could be explicable or justified\u201d.<\/p>\n

He described the delay as \u201cegregious and without reason\u201d.<\/p>\n

The court also heard that deciding not to prosecute, police sought advice from three Crown solicitors, although that advice has never been publicly released after it was deemed legally privileged. <\/p>\n

Stevenson said that left an obvious question. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf police received advice not to prosecute, why would they go out searching for more opinions?\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevenson said the decision not to prosecute wasn\u2019t an option for police and breached the Solicitor-General\u2019s Prosecution Guidelines. <\/p>\n

In November 2024, the Independent Police Conduct Authority found the shooting to be unjustified and that excessive force was used. <\/p>\n

It also found Officer A\u2019s contention that Price had a weapon when he was fatally shot was \u201cimplausible and improbable,\u201d adding that the chance that Price was armed was \u201cremote\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hana, who is taking the case on behalf of the wh\u0101nau, is seeking a declaration from the court that the decision not to prosecute was unlawful and wants it reconsidered.<\/p>\n

She is also seeking $50,000 in damages under the NZ Bill of Rights Act (BORA), to vindicate her rights and to mark out the police failings in the case. <\/p>\n

NZ police kill at 11 times the rate of the UK, 4 times the rate of Australia<\/p>\n

Stevenson began his submissions with statistics about police shootings, telling the court that New Zealand police kill at 11 times the rate of their United Kingdom counterparts and four times the rate of Australia. <\/p>\n

Stevenson said most victims were M\u0101ori, adding that by any measure, these were \u201cjarring statistics\u201d. <\/p>\n

Since 2000, Taranaki police have shot and killed five men, four of whom were M\u0101ori. <\/p>\n

Stevenson told the court there was clearly a significant build-up and backdrop to Price\u2019s killing, but it was clear that by the time he left his VW car \u201che was running for his life\u201d.<\/p>\n

Price had side-swiped a police dog wagon, which prompted the officer to shoot at Price\u2019s car. <\/p>\n

Price\u2019s car came to a stop, and he abandoned it, sprinting up the road in search of a new vehicle. <\/p>\n

At this point, it was abundantly clear Price was unarmed, Stevenson said. <\/p>\n

Price then approached another car from the driver\u2019s side and offered to give the occupants $500 to get away.<\/p>\n

The court heard they didn\u2019t feel threatened by Price, instead describing him as scared, wanting to get away, and looking \u201cterrified\u201d.<\/p>\n

Price got into the driver\u2019s seat, pushing the driver over towards his passenger. As Price grabbed the accelerator, the driver put his foot on the brake and pulled the handbrake, immobilising the vehicle.<\/p>\n

At this point, Officer A arrived at the car and shot Price point-blank in the chest. <\/p>\n

Under questioning from Justice Victoria Heine, Stevenson confirmed six shots were fired, with the final shot proving fatal. <\/p>\n

Stevenson told the court that Officer A received \u201cimproperly favourable treatment\u201d after the shooting as he was a serving police officer, adding there was a lack of impartiality and independence in the way he was treated.<\/p>\n

The officer wasn\u2019t interviewed until almost two weeks after the incident, and during that interview he said the officer was treated as a suspect, not a witness. <\/p>\n

During the interview, which wasn\u2019t recorded on video, the officer was referred to as \u201cmate\u201d 14 times. <\/p>\n

Officer A brought a handwritten account. Stevenson suggested someone accused of fatal force typically wasn\u2019t allowed to bring handwritten notes to an interview. <\/p>\n

Stevenson said during the interview the officer was never appropriately pressed or challenged on his account, contrary to the police code of conduct. <\/p>\n

Finally, the interviewing officer was trained in interviewing techniques by the lawyer representing Officer A, which Stevenson submitted wasn\u2019t appropriate. <\/p>\n

Stevenson told the court a citizen has a right to life, and that right must be protected.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe say that the investigation and the resulting decision not to prosecute in respect of the shooting of Mr Price was woefully inadequate and fell short of the right to life standard,\u201d Stevenson said. <\/p>\n

Breached NZ Bill of Rights<\/p>\n

Hana\u2019s second lawyer, barrister Max Harris, said the team also said the decision not to prosecute the officer breached BORA. <\/p>\n

This was because it lacked independence and impartiality, wasn\u2019t prompt, wasn\u2019t effective and credible, and lacked transparency. <\/p>\n

He also said the IPCA had failed to follow obvious lines of inquiry concerning the officer\u2019s decision to use a firearm rather than a taser, which was available to him and other police. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy was Officer A so confident about the prospect of the use of a firearm in the incident and not about the use of a taser?\u201d Harris asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe say a taser would have been a reasonable use of force and a point-blank shot to the chest was excessive,\u201d Stevenson submitted.<\/p>\n

Family remains in the dark: Lawyer <\/p>\n

Price\u2019s third lawyer, barrister Julia Spelman, told the court of the frustration and difficulties the family had encountered trying to receive even basic information about the case from police, including the reasons not to prosecute the officers involved, leaving family and counsel \u201cin a vacuum\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does put the applicant in a difficult position where the respondent [police] is withholding information, key reasons, and saying without them the case cannot proceed. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe respondent had resisted at every turn the applicant\u2019s efforts to obtain that information.<\/p>\n

\u201cA failure to give reasons means that the lawfulness of what was done cannot be assessed by the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

She told the court the letter the police sent Hana wasn\u2019t reasons, but rather a notification of the decision not to prosecute.<\/p>\n

And she submitted that, in failing to provide reasons, the police were in breach of the Victims\u2019 Rights Act. <\/p>\n

She said it had taken repeated requests by counsel to state the number of shots fired and the cause of death. <\/p>\n

She told the court there were \u201csignificant periods of silence\u201d interspersed by the drip-feeding of information to the family before the IPCA\u2019s report in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cMs Hana remains in the dark about key reasons for police decision-making,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

She said police had not helped the family, citing one example where the family had wanted to view post-mortem examination photos and been told they could do so at a police station. <\/p>\n

Yet the family said they have reason to distrust police and didn\u2019t want to deal with them directly, she said. <\/p>\n

She said if the review was successful, any reconsideration as to whether charges should be laid against the officers involved should be left to the new inspectorate of the police, a body that was recommended following the investigation into the former deputy commissioner Jevon McSkimming. <\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately the decision was not made by someone independent and impartial, and for a lawful decision to be made it should have been made by someone independent and impartial,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

The hearing before Justice Heine is set to continue tomorrow, with lawyers from the Attorney-General presenting their case tomorrow. <\/p>\n

Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice. <\/p>\n

Join the NZ Herald\u2019s Open Justice team for Case by Case<\/a>, a video and podcast series examining the disputes and decisions making headlines across New Zealand. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now Price\u2019s mother Jillian Hana is challenging the police decision in July 2023 not to charge the police…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9084,14134,292096,6178,111,43,139,5006,69,675,3333,238073,7819,61],"class_list":["post-592654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-challenges","tag-decision","tag-kaoss","tag-mother","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-not","tag-nz","tag-police","tag-price","tag-prosecute","tag-shooting","tag-to"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592654","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=592654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}