List of New Zealand police officers killed in the line of duty
Wikimedia list article
This is a list of New Zealand Police officers and non-sworn staff killed in the line of duty. As of 2025, 34 police officers have been killed by criminal act, and about 17 have died from accidental causes, during the execution of duty. There has been one instance of multiple police deaths, when Stanley Graham gunned down four officers (and two wartime home guardsmen) attempting to apprehend him in 1941, and four double fatalities. Most of the homicides have been a result of gunshot wounds, the accidents mainly due to either drowning or vehicle (car/aircraft) accidents.
A slain officer may receive a police funeral, including an honour guard and flag-draped casket, and be officially mourned in the New Zealand House of Representatives. At least four officers have received posthumous honours—Sergeant Stewart Guthrie received the highest Commonwealth civilian decoration, the George Cross. The Lou Grant Award, created in the memory of the police sergeant who died in the 1993 Eagle helicopter mid-air collision, is awarded every second year for excellence and contributions to search and rescue.
The Memorial Wall at the Royal New Zealand Police College lists the names of fallen colleagues, whom the service commemorates annually on Police Remembrance Day. The Police Association together with the New Zealand Police introduced a Police Remembrance Day Pin in 2007, for officers to wear to honour the memory of those slain during the course of duty. The pin combines a Huia tail feather with a police chevron; the Huia bird was sacred in Māori culture, wearing of its feathers restricted to people of high status.
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This entry incorporates text from “List of New Zealand police officers killed in the line of duty” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.