Auckland CBD shooting: Video captures fatal shoot out between gunman and police

KEY POINTS

• Two civilians are dead after a gunman armed with a pump-action shotgun stormed a building undergoing renovations at 1 Queen St this morning. The gunman has also died.
• The shooter has been identified as 24-year-old Matua Tangi Matua Reid. He was on home detention for domestic violence and had approval to travel to the building site.
• St John said they had assessed 10 patients and seven have been taken to hospital.
• PM Chris Hipkins says the Fifa Women’s World Cup will continue as planned, with the opening game at Eden Park tonight.

WARNING: Distressing content

The terrifying moment police opened fire on a gunman inside an Auckland CBD building this morning has been caught on video.

A volley of gunshots can be heard in the footage while eight workers in high-vis jackets are escorted across the Commercial Bay and Britomart area by four heavily armed police officers.

Police Commissioner, Andrew Coster confirmed a shootout between police and the gunman occurred this morning.

At 7.22am police received multiple emergency calls of a shooting from the second floor of the Queen St building.

A flurry of eight continuous gunshots can be heard on the video from inside the building. Police have confirmed the shooting has left three people dead, including the gunman.

The Herald understands the gunman was 24-year-old Matu Tangi Matua Reid, who was serving a community-based sentence of home detention at the time of the shooting and was subject to electronic monitoring via an ankle bracelet tracker.

Coster said Reid barricaded himself in a life shaft and fired at police, injuring an officer. More shots were fired and the offender was found deceased.

Coster said this was an “active shooter” situation with multiple shots fired when staff arrived at the scene.

Police later found two people dead inside the building.

More than 40 people witnessed the shooting, as workers took refuge wherever possible within the building.

Coster said the number of injured may move around, he said six were confirmed including the injured officer but “the number could be higher”.

St John ambulance operations manager Stuart Cockburn said St John assessed ten patients and seven were taken to hospital.

Cockburn said seven of the 10 were injured by gunshots.

The building is an Auckland CBD construction site on the 21-level One Queen St, at the heart of Auckland’s busiest domestic transport hub.