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With at least five drive-by shootings in Auckland in the past month, a councillor has questioned whether “outrageous” criminal offending may become “normal” to residents.
Prominent city councillors Alf Filipaina and Daniel Newman said people in South Auckland were sick and tired of the continual shootings, and both were anxious to find out whether they were linked and if a gang feud was behind them.
The latest happened last night on East Tāmaki Rd in Ōtara. A home was sprayed with bullets, with four holes visible on the exterior walls, another in a window pane, and a large bullet hole left in the front door.
In one incident, gunmen targeted a house as a family slept inside. In another, a grandmother was rocked by gunshots as she was watching television with her granddaughter and a dialysis-dependant housemate.
Police were investigating the shootings and whether the numerous incidents were linked. A spokesman said, “At this stage, we are keeping an open mind to the circumstances”.
Police have not reported any injuries in any of the shootings to date. But Filipaina, a councillor for Manukau, and Newman, a councillor for Manurewa-Papakura, said lives were being put at risk and both wanted to see a crackdown.
“There is a palpable concern - because there is a whole community of law-abiding residents in South Auckland who want to be safe and who want an assurance that they are safe, yet we observe these drive-by shootings,” Newman said.
“[The] community . . . is just sick of it. There’s a raw sense of frustration and anger that something like this would happen.
“The sad reality is that you become rather numb to it. There comes a point where you see there is an outrageous element of criminal offending that appears ... almost a little bit normal,” Newman said.
Manurewa-Papakura councillor Daniel Newman says drive-by shootings have been so common recently people feel they are almost normal. Photo / Michael Craig
“There is a sense that organised criminal offending is taking hold - and I believe that the criminal justice system has failed to appreciate the need to really crack down on this,” he said.
Newman questioned whether courts were handing out appropriate sentences to offenders.
“I expect that the Police Commissioner, the government and judges ... will address this through proportionate sentences that reflect the severity of the offending - because you’re talking about lives being at risk here,” he said.
Filipaina said finding out whether the incidents were linked and if they were part of some gang war would ease some anxieties in the community by ruling out the possibility they were random attacks.
Manukau councillor Alf Filipaina says finding out what is behind the shootings would ease some concern in the community, but ultimately he wants to see guns taken off the street. Photo / Jed Bradley
“I hope we’re not seeing people [randomly] getting p****d off and as a result thinking ‘I’ll teach you a lesson’ and go use a bloody firearm. [If it were gang-related] I could at least say, as an ex-police officer, there are two factions [fighting] and it’s not a wider issue,” Filipaina said.
He also said the incidents highlighted the need to remove guns from the community.
“Simple as that - get these firearms out and take them off people who only have one purpose, to use them illegally,” Filipaina said.
He said he had heard former gangsters in his community, and even they were sick and tired of the shootings.
“There’s a feeling [of concern] for our families. What if somebody gets seriously injured or killed? Please - get these firearms off the street,” Filipaina said.
The shooting in Roscommon Rd, close to Clendon McDonald’s, damaged multiple windows in the house as well as a car in the driveway.
A small east Auckland cul-de-sac became a target twice in just a week. On June 20, two men aged 23 and 25 were arrested for the shooting and faced firearms and drug charges.
Police investigate the scene of a drive-by shooting on Plumley Cresc in Papatoetoe. Photo / Michael Craig
The tenant in the kitchen of her house that was targeted in a drive by shooting on in Māngere East. Photo / Jason Oxenham
The 58-year-old woman, who did not want to be identified, was sitting in the lounge watching television with her daughter, baby granddaughter and ex-partner, a 79-year-old man on dialysis.
There were several bullet holes in windows and weatherboards, detectives placed at least 18 forensic markers where bullet casings were found on the roadway outside the address.
