Wednesday, 15 April 2020 - 3:38pm

Sergeant John McGuire - a tribute

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This week we remember our fallen colleague John McGuire on the 110th anniversary of his death in the course of duty.

Sergeant McGuire died on 14 April 1910, four days after being shot in a struggle with an assailant during the hunt for an escaped burglar in Palmerston North. He had been posted to the city just two days earlier, having decided to transfer to the front line after spending most of his 16-year career in clerical roles.

The burglar was eventually arrested and charged with murder but was acquitted because he had not been positively identified at the scene of the shooting. He was convicted on seven charges of burglary, and imprisoned for three years on each charge, but later escaped and was not recaptured.

Sergeant McGuire’s funeral at Karori Cemetery, Wellington, was very well attended, with 100 uniformed police officers in attendance, 70 carriages in the cortege and a crowd of pedestrians which stretched for for half a mile.