Wounded and dying victims of a white supremacist terrorist attack on a mosque in Christchurch were left alone in the building for ten minutes in the chaotic aftermath of the 2019 mass shooting, as confusion and incorrect reports of more gunmen prompted police officers to leave the scene and rush to other locations, a coronial inquest has heard.
Amid uncertainty about whether more attacks were imminent, paramedics did not enter Masjid an-Nur, the first of two New Zealand mosques attacked by the Australian gunman, until 30 minutes after the attack ended.
A verified timeline of the emergency response to the 15 March 2019 massacre emerged publicly for the first time since the mass shooting when CCTV footage was played on Wednesday during the coronial inquest into the deaths of 51 Muslim worshipers. Dozens more were injured in the attack.
Brenton Tarrant, 28, an Australian man who was radicalised online and moved to New Zealand in 2017 where he bought guns and planned the hate-fuelled attack, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2020 for murder, attempted murder, and terrorism. A commission of inquiry in 2020 concluded that New Zealand government agencies could not have stopped the massacre beforehand “except by chance.”
But no other inquiry before the coronial investigation had scrutinised how New Zealand’s authorities responded after the gunman opened fire. While the actions of police officers in catching him 19 minutes after the attack began have been widely praised, many of those responding have said the attack in a relatively peaceful country where serious gun crime is rare confronted them with scenes they had never expected.
A lingering question for some bereaved relatives in the years since the attack “revolves around why our loved ones were left at the mosque without any immediate action for some time and the police did not allow us or anyone else to get them out,” Rashid Omar, a spokesperson for the 15 March Whānau Trust – representing many of the bereaved families – said in a written statement before the inquest began. His son, Tariq Omar, 24, was killed at Masjid an-Nur.
CCTV footage from the mosque, played in court on Wednesday, showed four police officers from the armed offenders squad – the first to enter the building after the attack – running for their vehicle and departing as they learned Tarrant had opened fire at a second mosque in the city, Linwood Islamic Centre.
Before they were ordered to leave Masjid an-Nur, where 43 people were killed, the officers had started to triage the wounded. But they swiftly ran out of bandages and called on their radios, with increasing urgency, for paramedics. Two told the inquest at the Christchurch high court this week that they did not understand why none arrived.
One was asked what he believed would happen to the surviving victims when he left the mosque.
“I wasn’t sure,” he said. But as a tactical operator his job was to apprehend the gunman, he added.
After the first officers’ departure, almost ten minutes passed before anyone else entered the mosque. At 2:15pm – a quarter of an hour after Tarrant had been rammed in his car and arrested while trying to reach a third mosque – two paramedics were escorted inside by armed police.
By then, the terrorist had told the officers arresting him that he was one of 10 gunmen planning attacks that day. It wasn’t true, but the claim had prompted more alarm at Masjid an-Nur. The officer guarding the mosque’s gate – whose name and rank, like many of those giving evidence, are suppressed – told the court that with few other officers remaining at the scene, he did not want to leave the building defenceless by going inside to help people.
Another incorrect report on the police communications channel – about shots fired at Christchurch hospital – diverted other officers there. The arrival of medical help was further vexed when a senior officer at the district command centre gave a panicked warning on the police radio that Tarrant – who had already been arrested – was returning to the scene.
Det Supt Darryl Sweeney did not know that he was watching a delayed version of Tarrant’s video of the attack, which the gunman had broadcast live on the internet. He continued to narrate the terrorist’s return to the mosque for three minutes as officers standing outside the building, who knew the report was untrue, listened in bewilderment. One told the court he was unable to break into the communication channel to quell the alarm.
Many officers, including Sweeney, said they would not have done anything differently with the information they had at the time.
Coroner Brigitte Windley will decide, after the seven week hearing at the high court in Christchurch, whether any of those killed could have been saved. She is expected to publish findings in 2024 about 10 of the 13 questions before her inquiry.
But the inquest, which began 24 October, has already answered some long-held questions. An evidential report published by the police in February 2021 said the first ambulance was “granted access” to the mosque at 2:08p.m. – but the CCTV footage played in court on Wednesday showed paramedics entering the building seven minutes later.
The same report said that all of those killed suffered “inevitably fatal injuries which meant they would not have survived had they been evacuated […] sooner.”
The inquest has yet to hear medical evidence from pathologists, doctors, or ambulance officers. Christchurch’s ambulance service, St John, is a charity and some paramedics are volunteers.
