{"id":163584,"date":"2025-09-08T05:42:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T05:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/tom-phillips-shooting-nz-police-race-to-find-children-before-nightfall-after-fugitive-father-shot-dead-by-police-latest-updates-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T05:42:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T05:42:06","slug":"tom-phillips-shooting-nz-police-race-to-find-children-before-nightfall-after-fugitive-father-shot-dead-by-police-latest-updates-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/tom-phillips-shooting-nz-police-race-to-find-children-before-nightfall-after-fugitive-father-shot-dead-by-police-latest-updates-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Phillips shooting: NZ police race to find children before nightfall after fugitive father shot dead by police \u2013 latest updates – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fugitive father who has been on the run with his children for four years was shot by police after an attempted burglary of a building in Piopio. Police are now searching for two of his missing children
Full report: Tom Phillips shot dead after attempted burglary, NZ police confirm<\/a>
Police have not yet located the children of Tom Phillips<\/strong>, acting deputy commissioner Jill Rogers <\/strong>said in a press conference on Monday afternoon.
\u201cWe have children we believe are unaccompanied in the bush and it is our priority to locate them.\u201d
Specialist teams, including about 50 staff and the armed offenders squad, were out in force to locate the children, Rogers said.
<\/path><\/svg>We can\u2019t speculate as to whether they have assistance with them or not.
Rogers said there were about three hours of daylight left.
Tom Phillips<\/strong> came from a farming family in New Zealand\u2019s Marokopa \u2013 a tiny coastal settlement of fewer than 100 people that became inextricably linked with his story.
Before Phillips disappeared with his three children in 2021, many New Zealanders would have struggled to pick it out on a map, as Eva Corlett<\/a> writes. <\/strong>It is a quiet, isolated settlement in Waikato, two hours\u2019 drive from the nearest city, Hamilton.
The remoteness of the landscape frustrated police attempts to locate Phillips, and the question of how he concealed himself and his children and survived in the harsh terrain puzzled the nation, leading to speculation he may have had assistance.
Corlett\u2019s feature story on how the case unfolded before today\u2019s fatal shooting continues:
<\/path><\/svg>Phillips\u2019 lengthy disappearance was preempted by an earlier \u2013 albeit shorter \u2013 stint where he went bush with his children. In September 2021, the four were reported missing and his ute was found abandoned along the Marokopa shoreline, resulting in a major search operation across land and sea.
Nineteen days later, Phillips and the children walked into his parents\u2019 farmhouse just outside Marokopa. Phillips claimed he had taken his children on an extended camping trip in dense bush in an effort to clear his head<\/a>. He was charged with wasting police time and resources.
But fewer than three months later, the four were reported missing again and when Phillips failed to show for a January court appearance, a warrant was issued for his arrest.
You can read the full feature here:
Here are some of the latest pictures coming in from the North Island area where Tom Phillips<\/strong> was killed early this morning in a shootout with police.
Luxon said what unfolded today was a \u201csad and absolutely tragic event\u201d.
\u201cThis is not what anybody wanted to happen today and I think that is … a consistent feeling from from everybody across New Zealand<\/a>,\u201d the prime minister said.
<\/path><\/svg>We\u2019re used to seeing these stories from other parts of the world, but not here in New Zealand. And it\u2019s certainly a very sad and tragic day.
Prime minister Christopher Luxon<\/strong> said the police\u2019s years-long investigation into the disappearance of Tom Phillips<\/strong> would warrant inquiry.
\u201cI think there will be a series of questions to ask in due course, but today just isn\u2019t that day.
<\/path><\/svg>Today is a day where we are … thinking and praying for a fallen police colleague. We are also making sure that those children can be found as quickly and as safely as possible.
Prime minister Christopher Luxon<\/strong> says the whole of New Zealand<\/a> is anxiously waiting for the children of Tom Phillips<\/strong> to be found.
Luxon told media on Monday afternoon that this morning\u2019s events \u201care not how anyone would have wanted this to end\u201d.
<\/path><\/svg>I doubt there is a New Zealander who has not followed, to some extent, the story of the abduction of the children, of whom there have been only intermittent sightings since December 2021.
Luxon said police were devastated by what has happened to their colleague but were focusing on finding the children.
The December 2021 disappearance of Tom Phillips<\/strong> and his three children confounded investigators for years as they scoured the densely forested area where they believed the family was hiding.
The family was not believed to have ever have travelled far from the isolated North Island rural settlement of Marokopa where they lived, but credible sightings of them were rare, as the Associated Press reports.
The farm supplies store Phillips targeted this morning is in a small town in the same sprawling farming region of Waikato, south of Auckland, as the settlement of about 40 people from where he and his three children vanished.
Police believed Phillips had help concealing his family and some residents of the isolated rural area expressed support for him. A reward of NZ$80,000 and an offer of immunity from prosecution was offered for information about the family\u2019s whereabouts last June but was never paid.
Here\u2019s footage we\u2019ve just published of acting deputy commissioner Jill Rogers<\/strong> telling reporters what happened as fugitive father Tom Phillips<\/strong> was shot dead during a shootout with police this morning after a reported store robbery in Piopio.
That concludes the press conference. Acting deputy commissioner Jill Rogers <\/strong>said police would alert media to any major updates throughout the evening, should they occur.
The mother of the children, Cat, is being kept informed of the situation, acting deputy commissioner Jill Rogers <\/strong>said.
However, Rogers said that to her knowledge, Cat had not been reunited with the child taken into custody today.
The constable who was injured in the incident with Tom Phillips<\/strong> this morning had commenced the first of many surgeries, Jill Rogers<\/strong> told the press conference.
\u201cHe\u2019s gone back in for further surgery this afternoon on the injuries to his eye, and he will remain in Waikato hospital for some time to come, having those injuries tended to,\u201d the police acting deputy commissioner said.
<\/path><\/svg>His family and his nearest are with him, and he\u2019s been well supported as is his family.<\/p>\n

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Fugitive father who has been on the run with his children for four years was shot by police after an attempted burglary of a building in Piopio. Police are now searching for two of his missing childrenFull report: Tom Phillips shot dead after attempted burglary, NZ police confirmPolice have not yet located the children of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":163585,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}