A rundown of the Auckland CBD shooting as it unfolded throughout the day.
Video / NZ Herald
Matu Reid, 24, went on a deadly rampage with a firearm at a building site on Queen St last July. He fatally shot two co-workers, Solomona Tootoo and Tupuga Sipiliano, and injured 10 others.
Reid died in a suspected suicide. But the shooting spree raised questions about how someone without a firearms licence could obtain a pump-action shotgun.
A police investigation alleges the shotgun was legally purchased nine months before the shootings, then illegally supplied on the black market.
Two men have been charged. But the criminal case comes as politicians weigh up the future of the newly established firearms register.
Reid’s mother told the Herald she still had no idea how her son got the shotgun and voiced support for the register.
Matu Reid walked on to a construction site in downtown Auckland in July with a pump-action shotgun and opened fire, killing two of his workmates and injuring 10 others.
After exchanging shots with armed police in a tower block on Queen St, the 24-year-old was found dead ina suspected suicide.
Among the many questions raised by the shocking act of gun violence was how a young man, on home detention for assaulting his partner, could get his hands on a firearm without a licence.
Detectives investigating the origin of the firearm allege the shotgun was purchased legally from a retail store in New Zealand before it was sold on to the black market, the Herald can reveal.
It’s a tactic known as using a “straw buyer”, or retail diversion, which police believe is the most common way for firearms to end up in criminal hands.
An Auckland man with a firearms licence bought a Stoeger shotgun in October 2022 and then allegedly removed the serial number, according to a police briefing released under the Official Information Act.
He then allegedly supplied the shotgun to an associate who did not hold a firearms licence.
“Licence holder and associate both arrested and charged. Associate refuses to identify [the] person they supplied the firearm to,”Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Beal wrote in the briefing presentation.
Beal was the officer in charge of the specialist Firearms Investigation Team (FIT) which focuses on the supply of firearms on the black market.
However, Operation Tuscan was unable to identify the “full chain of possession from sale to [crime] scene”, and confirm exactly how Reid obtained the firearm used in the shooting.
The Herald understands the police were able to trace the shotgun because ESR scientists managed to restore most of the serial number that was filed off.
The partial serial number was then cross-referenced with recent sales of the firearm’s particular make and model, and search warrants were executed in September 2023.
Matu Reid killed two men and injured 10 others, including a police officer, during a shooting rampage in the Auckland CBD in July 2023. Photos / Hayden Woodward / Supplied
Two men, aged 25, were arrested and jointly charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and removing a marking from a firearm, Detective Superintendent Ross McKay confirmed this week.
One of the men also faces a third charge of unlawful possession of a firearm. Both men held firearms licences at the time but these have been revoked, McKay said.
“The Firearms Investigations Team (FIT) oversaw a phase of Operation Tuscan which sought to investigate how Matu Reid came to unlawfully be in possession of the shotgun used,” McKay said.
“Police are continuing to investigate how the shotgun used on 20 July 2023 ended up in the hands of Reid, who did not hold a firearms licence.
“Reid’s death, as well as the tragic deaths of Solomona Tootoo and Tupuga Sipiliano remain subject of an ongoing Coronial investigation.”
The 25-year-old who allegedly purchased the shotgun, then illegally supplied it to someone else, appeared in the Waitakere District Court this week.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges, which carry a maximum penalty of four years in prison.
His defence lawyer Nicholas Wintour, after noticing a Herald reporter in court, successfully sought interim name suppression for his client.
Wintour said the man’s employment could be jeopardised by the publication of his name.
“The issue is particularly complex and relates to a high-profile case,” Wintour said.
The new details about the Matu Reid shootings were disclosed in a police briefing to Nicole McKee, the associate Minister of Justice, and a similar presentation to a group of experts advising her.
McKee is in charge of the firearms portfolio and has stated the coalition Government is committed to rewriting the Arms Act “in its entirety”.
When in opposition, the Act MP was a vocal critic of the firearms register and other gun law reform on the grounds that the new rules punished legitimate gun owners, instead of criminals who would break the law anyway.
One of her first moves as a minister was to bring forward a review of the effectiveness of the firearms registry to be completed by next month - just 12 months after the registry started.
But the police maintain the firearms registry will deter “straw buyers”; legitimate gun owners who supply unlicensed associates, which often end up in the criminal underworld.
“We believe with the firearms registry in place that, in time, it will give police the ability to trace firearms that have been stolen or diverted for use in crime, so we can then identify how firearms get into offenders’ hands,” McKay told the Herald.
The slideshow presentation by Beal gave a dozen examples of “straw buyers” who had been investigated in recent years.
As well as the Matu Reid shootings, Beal also highlighted Operation Carbine, where a former Hells Angel in Hastings recruited a network of straw buyers to purchase $50,000 of guns and ammunition.
Some were sold to members of the Mongrel Mob, others were delivered to the Killer Beez gang in Auckland during a turf war with the Tribesmen in 2022.
Nearly half of all FIT prosecutions related to “straw buyers”, the Beal report said, which started with analysis of 300,000 sales of firearms in recent years.
However, the introduction of the national firearms register in June last year, as well as requiring records to be kept for private sales of guns, is expected to make retail diversion much harder to get away with.
This would lead to organised crime exploring other avenues to find firepower.
Beal anticipated fake and forged licences might become a problem, as well as staged burglaries where legitimate gun owners illegally supply firearms but claim they were stolen.
Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee, with police staff, inspecting seized illegal firearms after announcing changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders law in March 2024. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
In a written statement, McKee confirmed she had received a “similar” presentation from the New Zealand Police about their work on illicit firearms.
“However, I had to leave prior to the conclusion.”
Asked whether she still stood by her previous comments about the effectiveness of the firearms register, McKee said the briefing was “one source of information that will need to be considered”.
“I will be seeking advice from the Ministry of Justice following their review of the Firearms Registry before making any decisions … I will shortly announce more detail about the Firearms Registry review.”
Before entering politics, McKee was the spokesperson for the Council of Licenced Firearms Owners (Colfo). The lobby group continues to oppose the register.
Instead of making New Zealand safer, the requirement to register each firearm created a “shopping list for criminals” of which houses are most valuable to target, Colfo spokesman Hugh Devereux-Mack has previously said.
“In a time where we see increasing cyber-attacks, and supposedly secure systems being breached, the greatest threat to licensed firearm owners, their families and public safety is the firearms register,” Devereux-Mack said.
Philippa Yasbek, from the lobby group Gun Control NZ, said a national register helps the police stop “diversion in its tracks”.
“There are 250,000 firearms licence holders but we only need a few bad apples to supply gangs with as many guns as they want,” Yasbek said.
“Diverters are less than 0.1 per cent of licence holders but their actions have tragic consequences. We can’t just rely on the vetting of licence holders to keep us safe. We need other tools, such as a registry and the ban on semi-automatic weapons to protect everyone in the community.
“No one measure is a silver bullet, but when we put them together, we will better protect everyone from gun harm.”
Nearly a year on from the shooting, Reid’s mother, who does not want to be identified for fear of retribution, said she has no idea where her son got the pump-action shotgun.
“I wouldn’t have a clue. If I had known I would’ve have told the police the day they came to tell me my son was dead,” she said.
“If I knew he had a gun, I wouldn’t have let this happen, I would’ve stopped Matu. The police have not told us how he got the gun or where he got it from - we don’t know nothing.”
Reid never had anything to do with firearms, she said. Even his uncles, who are in gangs, had been trying to find out where he acquired the weapon, his mother said.
She voiced support for the firearms register.
“Oh hell yeah, I think it is a good idea to have a gun register, if anything goes down like this shooting, we would have an idea where it came from,” she said.
I am so lost without Matu. He was my baby. I‘m glad he rang us before he died to tell us he loved us and that he was sorry.”
Jared Savage is an award-winning journalist who covers crime and justice issues, with a particular interest in organised crime. He joined the Herald in 2006, and is the author of Gangland and Gangster’s Paradise.
Carolyne Meng-Yee is an Auckland- based investigative journalist. She worked for the Herald on Sunday in 2007-2011 and joined the rejoined the Herald in 2016. She was previously a commissioner at TVNZ and an award-winning current affairs producer for 60 Minutes, 20/20 and Sunday.
George Block is an Auckland-based reporter with a focus on police, the courts, prisons and defence. He joined the Herald in 2022 and has previously worked at Stuff in Auckland and the Otago Daily Times in Dunedin.
