Detective Sergeant Neville Power was one of two Police officers shot in the Waitakere Ranges in January 1963, when they were called out to an incident involving a man firing shots at a dog kennels near Bethells Beach.
The gunman was located in a nearby hillside cottage and when Power tried to discharge tear gas through a window, he was shot at point blank range. Senior officer Detective Inspector Wallace Chalmers was also shot by Victor George Wasmuth, who was later declared insane..
Twenty-five year-old Power was a married man and the son of then Assistant Commissioner Orme Power, who had been listening to the Police radio reports when he learnt of his son’s death. Both Power and Chalmers were posthumously awarded the Queens Police Medal for gallantry, and the case led to the formation of the Armed Offenders Squad..
Neville Wilson POWER
Died in January 1963
