SIEGE
On the 7th of May 2009, Senior Constables Len Snee, Grant Diver and Bruce Miller arrived at 41 Chaucer Road in Napier to serve a search warrant on Jan Molenaar for growing cannabis.
This was a routine job and something they had done countless times before. But what was meant to be an simple operation ended with one police officer dead, two officers critically injured and a member of the public fighting for his life.
For some fifty hours Jan Molenaar put a city under siege and made a permanent and devastating imprint upon the national psyche of New Zealand. His actions changed the lives of individuals, families, the Police and Napier.
SIEGE is the story of one of the worst cases of violence New Zealand has ever seen, made all the more shocking because of its ordinary suburban backdrop.
SIEGE was made with funding from New Zealand On Air's Platinum Fund.