Under Fire: A storm in his head

Rob Mokaraka was shot by police - and lived to tell the tale. He wants them to change the way they deal with people who have mental health problems. Catrin Owen reports.

It took a bullet searing through his chest for Rob Mokaraka to wake up from the swirling storm inside his head.

It was 2009, he’d had a mental breakdown after a relationship break-up and he was spiralling out of control.

The only thing he could think of to escape the pain was to die, preferably in a violent way.

So on July 27, Mokaraka called the police, claiming an armed and angry man was at a house in the Auckland suburb of Pt Chevalier.

Growing up knowing the police had a history of shooting Māori, he gave them a detailed description of himself and dressed up to make himself look more intimidating.

“I went out and provoked them to shoot me dead. In my hand I had a meat cleaver and I had a soup ladle wrapped up in a tea towel.”

Thoughts of guilt, failure and shame engulfed him as he stepped on to Smale St to find that he was under siege and surrounded by police and a television crew.

Asked to put the weapons down, he refused. As he stepped forward a single bullet was fired from a Glock pistol, hitting Mokaraka in the chest.

As soon as it hit, he knew he’d made a mistake.

The storm inside his head suddenly stopped swirling.

“I asked a police officer to push down on the wound ... the bullet was searing like fire through me.”

Mokaraka asked an officer to shoot him in the head as he was in so much pain.

After weeks spent in hospital, multiple operations later, the bullet was finally removed and Mokaraka woke up from the storm.

“My actions from having a mental breakdown, which at the time I didn’t know what was happening to me, has caused a ripple effect and traumatised my family and friends and even traumatised the police officer,” he says.

He had to re-live the incident over and over again and after multiple court cases he was charged with possession of an imitation firearm - the soup ladle covered in a tea towel.

He completed 400 hours of community service and went into therapy.

Since then, he has been on a healing journey and is now calling for the re-education of police in dealing with mental health cases.

Mokaraka says there are underlying issues with police shootings.

"With increasing mental health statistics and suicide attempts, police need to be re-educated," he says.

"I just needed to be dead. I was swirling in the storm and when you've got no tools to cope, that's all you know."

If a negotiator or a whanau member had been there while he was staring down the barrel of the pistol, he would have dropped the meat cleaver and the soup ladle, he says.

"If the whanau had broken the bubble I was in I would have dropped everything.

"All I needed was a hug. Because anger is fear.

“I think having someone who really loves you there, reaching out to you who is not a stranger, not a uniform, not a threat.”

Mokaraka wants police to have skilled personnel on the ground with better negotiation skills.

“It could have been avoided,” he says.

The police’s role in society is to protect and serve.

“So when they wrongly shoot somebody they put a layer of protection around the police and now it looks bad on them.

“I know it’s dangerous for police officers, but it’s that re-education that would give you a different view on reassessing a situation.”

Police callouts for suicide and mental health issues have risen by nearly a quarter since 2012.

Police mental health national manager senior sergeant Matthew Morris told Stuff in February that a mental health unit was set up in 2013 in response to the increasing number of people they come across who need help.

Recruits and officers now undergo more training which is focused on de-stigmatisation and how to de-escalate situations with people in crisis.

Mokaraka is critical of the mental health system and the government’s approach.

“It’s flawed and archaic and it’s no wonder this country is in a state of trauma,” he says.

“I really want the police to be re-educated in dealing with people with mental illness, but the government needs to step up.”

In regards to suicide by cop, Mokaraka believes police shouldn’t shoot.

“Definitely do not shoot the person. Saying a cop should oblige is saying they are a mercenary.”

Mokaraka has written a play, Shot Bro: Confessions of a Depressed Bullet, a raw, honest portrayal of the day he woke up from the “storm” he calls depression.

“It’s helping me heal and also educating communities,” he says.

“I’m ripping a lid that people are scared to talk about.”

He has attempted to have the play shown to police recruits as a way of showing them a different perspective.

The officer who compressed his wound attended Shot Bro.

“He also had a story from his side and it’s about bringing these two sides together.

“If we do that we can avoid a lot of unnecessary shootings.”

While initially Mokaraka was angry, he continues to walk his healing journey and a part of that is reaching out to the police officer that shot him.

“You can’t heal if you’re constantly angry and holding on to resentment and hate.”