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7.00AM
As the strike team prepares to enter the panic room, one police officer has already found it by another entrance. He has worked his way in from the roof, along the inside attic space and through an access door to the area where Dotcom is hiding. He looks in, sees nothing — Dotcom is hiding behind a pillar at the far end of the room. Moving into the room, he sees a closed gunsafe and eases the door open. Inside sits a shotgun. The officer backs away and returns to the crawlspace.

7.01AM
“Kim, it's the police,” call the officers as they climb the staircase to the panic room. The officers spread out as they enter. They are three wide with another at the rear, emerging again from the attic crawl space. “Kim, it's the police. You won't be harmed.” As they move down the room, they see the unmissable bulk of Dotcom peeking out from the sides of the pillar behind which he is hiding. “If you can hear me, show yourself,” the lead officer shouts.

The story varies here — police say Dotcom refused to put his hands out to the side and he had to be forced to the ground. Dotcom says the force involved a punch to the face and a kick. Where one police officer says he accidentally stood on Dotcom's hand, the tycoon described how the boot was deliberately set onto his hand and ground into it. The plasti-cuffs went on one wrist. “It's too tight, it's really painful,” he told officers. They don't bother looping the cuffs around the other wrist. Radio chatter recorded on court files shows the focus remained on the Doomsday Device, almost 15 minutes after the helicopters landed.
“Confirm target located safe room third level.”
“Thank you. Did he have any communication devices or otherwise on his person?”
“Negative. We are searching the environs. He could have discarded anything.”

They search the panic room and one enters the small server room attached to it. Banks of electronics blink at the searching officer as he scans the floor. Did you throw any electronic devices in here, he asks Dotcom, who stares blankly back.

Searching back through the room, another officer finds the gunsafe. It is recorded in later evidence as having been found open — a detail which carries a menacing, albeit misleading, tone. Evidence also suggests the first officer in the room may have opened the safe. Inside is a pistol grip shotgun.

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