Anthony Ratahi's daughters are devastated with the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) report decision which found the actions of the officer who fatally shot Ratahi at the Opunake Hotel in 2011, were justified.
Ratahi's oldest daughter told Te Kāea today the family vows to continue their fight for justice. The family of Anthony Ratahi are not satisfied with this asking why the officer didn't exhaust other options first.
The daughter of Anthony Ratahi says, “When he sees dad, he's saying that dad's actions are faster than his reaction, you're already aiming and dad hasn't got anything in his hands at this time, and if dad's going to reach into his pocket then shoot him in the shoulders, or taser him, I don’t know why a taser wasn't used."
The IPCA's investigation took into consideration however, the whole hostage incident, which was in total over 13 hours, not just the final moments leading to Ratahi's death.
What the IPCA did steer clear of was contributing factors which lead to Ratahi's state of mind at the time, like his continual struggles with mental illness and the role of the health system in all of this, daughter Cassia recalls one of the times he tried to reach out for help.
She spoke of how, after taking her father to the hospital, they received a call back saying that the hospital would not accept her father.
It's left the daughters and their children, still traumatised and without closure.
One of Anthony Ratahi’s daughters says, “At the end of the day what’s really getting to us girls, is that the public all think that we're out there trying to get compensation.
There's nothing that’s ever going to amount for our dad's death, but what we do want is just for someone to be held accountable, and not a justified death because it wasn't."