Man shot dead in suspected gang shooting in Whanganui

Tuesday, 21 August 2018

A 27-year-old man has died in a gang-related shooting in Whanganui and offenders are still on the loose.

Police have launched a homicide inquiry and Detective Inspector Ross McKay said they believed more than one person had carried out the shooting and left in a car.

A forensics team and investigators were trying to piece together details of how the shooting happened, including where it happened on the property, who was present and what type of guns were used.

'Full forensic investigations will go on tonight and into tomorrow.'

The mother of the man's partner said the man protected children and other guests in his home when members of a rival gang showed up about 9.40am on Tuesday.

The woman's daughter was in a relationship with the man who was fatally shot. The man was a Mongrel Mob member and he and the woman's daughter were home with guests, including children, when members of another gang arrived at the house.

'He told them to get in the back and hide and he saved them. He protected them. I love that boy – he protected them and then he went out and they shot him,' the woman said.

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Initially, police would only say they 'responded to a firearms incident', but just before 2pm they confirmed they had launched a homicide investigation and that officers from outside Whanganui had been called in to help.

'The offenders remain outstanding. However, we believe those involved were known to each other and are known to police,' McKay said.

'As inquiries are ongoing, and in response to this incident, the Whanganui community will notice an increased police presence. There is no immediate cause for concern to the general public.'

Police said on Tuesday afternoon it was not a random attack.

'We believe the parties involved have links or associations to gangs, but we are in the early stages of the investigation and are unable to comment further on this at this stage,' McKay said.

Extra officers have been brought in from Manawatū and Taranaki.

'We want the Whanganui community to feel comfortable that there is a strong police presence in the area [and police are] working hard to investigate this crime.'

The woman's daughter had recently introduced her family to her partner.

'He was just family and my moko loved him. He was visiting her home, he'd fallen in love, but [this area's] always been Black Power. They were getting a new home and they would've been gone in a week,' the woman said.

Tensions in the area had been escalating for some months, with a new youth gang increasing friction between old rivals the Black Power and Mongrel Mob, she said.

Another woman woman who drove past the scene about 9.50am on Tuesday, and who also asked not to be named, said she saw what appeared to be a body lying underneath a pink sheet.

A man at the scene said he heard three shots fired.

A blue tent and a black tarpaulin have been put up in the front yard of a cream-coloured house on Puriri St, under a pohutukawa tree.

A group of about 20 family and friends were talking together, hugging and comforting each other at the cordon by mid-afteroon. About 10 patched Mongrel Mob members also stood vigil.

Shan Albert, a cousin of the man who died, said the man was from a close extended family. He was 27, and had sons who were 7 and 3.

'Yes, he was a gang member, but that was just one side of him.

'It was family first. He was a great father and he provided for his family and friends and his kids' mother,' Albert said.

'Everyone knew who he was, but he put on a front. Behind that front he was the softest, nicest person. You could easily approach him about anything.'

On Tuesday afternoon, members of the Māori Fellowship Church on the corner outside the cordon invited those waiting at the scene to use the church hall, toilets and kitchen.

Te Kura o Kokohuia on Matipo St, which runs into Puriri St, posted a notice on its Facebook page saying the school was in lockdown on Tuesday morning.

'This is to inform you that your kids are safe and warm,' kura principal Tuhi Smith wrote.

The school shut early for the day.

Virginia Hina took a video of police diverting traffic after she came across the cordons along Puriri St after 10am. She said police were 'everywhere' and some were armed.

Janine Delaney and her husband Des were driving down Puriri St this morning, only minutes after the shooting.

'It'd obviously just happened. There were 10 to 15 very shocked people out on the footpath with phones to their ears,' Janine Delaney said.

Two minutes later they'd passed an ambulance heading towards Puriri St with sirens blaring.

It was unsettling to think that if they'd been a few minutes earlier on their drive they would have been right in the middle of it, she said.

'It was pretty freaky and scary when we found out for sure there had been a shooting.'

Puriri St is a main traffic thoroughfare between the suburbs of Tawhero and Castlecliff, at the south of the city near the Whanganui River mouth. 

In 2007, toddler Jhia Harmony Te Tua was shot dead as she slept on a couch at her home on Puriri St in a gang-related drive-by shooting.