[1] On 19 October 2016, an escaped prisoner fatally shot his ex-wife and her new partner before turning the gun on himself in Rarotonga.
[5] Radio New Zealand reported on 16 May 2017 that twenty percent of the police force had resigned, over the last year, over concerns that they were the most poorly paid government workers.
[6] Among the Police Service's mandate is exercising sovereignty over the nation's 200-kilometre (120 mi) exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
When the United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Seas extended maritime nations' EEZs Australia provided a patrol boat to the Cook Islands and patrol boats to 11 other fellow members of the Pacific Forum.
The Cook Islands operated a Pacific-class patrol boat, the CIPPB Te Kukupa, from 1989 to 2022, having received a re-fit in 2015.