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A man who said he joined the Rebels motorcycle gang at age 42 to protect his teen sons from bullying in their “troubled” East Auckland neighbourhood has been sentenced for a series of shootings - including one in which he was accompanied by a son whom he convinced to follow in his patched membership footsteps.
The son is now following in his footsteps to prison.
Texas Junior Doctor and his 21-year-old son Wiremu Doctor appeared side-by-side in an Auckland District Court dock this month after both pleaded guilty to discharging a firearm with reckless disregard.
In reviewing the younger Doctor’s upbringing to determine if sentence discounts should be applied, Judge John Bergseng said the multi-generational nature of the hearing “speaks volumes”.
Rebels gang members Texas Doctor (right) and son Wiremu Doctor appear in Auckland District Court for sentencing. Photo / Craig Kapitan
“Nothing is more telling than that you’re sitting in the dock next to your father, both facing the same charge,” he told the younger Doctor. “While your father has done his best in difficult circumstances ... ultimately your decision to join the Rebels motorcycle club has led you to this situation.”
He sentenced Texas Doctor to four years and three months’ imprisonment and ordered a sentence of two years and seven months’ imprisonment for Wiremu Doctor, who isn’t alleged to have fired a weapon directly but aided or encouraged his father.
The first instance of gunfire occurred just before midnight on July 19, 2022 amid a spate of shootings - many of which would later be blamed on unrelated gang warfare between the Killer Beez and the Tribesmen - that had the city on edge.
Defence lawyers for the Doctors insisted the shootings were not gang-sanctioned, instead characterising them as the result of a dispute between two families that had spun out of control. The Crown, however, described them as a pre-meditated “form of gang vigilante justice” and the judge appeared to agree. He did acknowledge the line was murky - it was not, Bergseng said, “retribution directly by one gang against another”.
The Doctors, who lived in Penrose, had been involved in an earlier “disagreement” with a set of siblings who lived with their mother about 3km away in Glen Innes, according to court documents recently released to the Herald. The specifics of the earlier disagreement remain vague, but the judge noted the victims’ family had a relationship with rival gang the Head Hunters.
The brothers they targeted weren’t home, but their mother had just been dropped off after an evening out with her three daughters, who were still in the driveway. She was waving goodbye to her daughters from a laundry room window when the Doctors and a third man arrived in two vehicles - two of them carrying shotguns.
“Texas Doctor shot at the house ... ” the agreed summary of facts for the case states. “Shotgun pellets entered the window of the laundry where [the mother] was, causing glass from the window to fall into her hair.”
Bullet casings could be seen in the road and one person was taken via ambulance to Auckland Hospital in a moderate condition, the Herald reported at the time. Texas Doctor’s brother told Stuff he didn’t see the shooting but noticed “a hole in his chest” in the immediate aftermath.
“It’s just become dangerous to be going out anywhere,” Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board chairwoman Maria Meredith lamented after the then-unsolved, back-to-back shootings, explaining she had lost sleep worrying about the safety of her own family when out after dark.
“Something’s become unhinged in our society … gone are the days of just having a fight. It’s ‘pull your gun and shoot at somebody’.”
Texas Doctor didn’t co-operate with police and no one was ever arrested for the Panmure shooting, but authorities mentioned it in court documents as a prelude to Texas Doctor returning to the Glen Innes home with an unidentified person on August 12, after he had been discharged from hospital, and opening fire again.
“Texas Doctor and the other person got out the vehicle and walked up the driveway of the address to the front door,” court documents state. “They were both holding a shotgun or other firearm.
“They fired 12 shots into the front door of the address, which caused extensive damage to a number of rooms inside the house.”
However, at that point the family they were targeting had already decided to move out.
Police searched Texas Doctor’s vehicle the next day and found a Norinco JW15A .22-calibre rifle and ammunition. Father and son were both charged with discharging a firearm with reckless disregard for the first incident. The elder Doctor was also charged with intentional damage for the second incident. Both charges carry punishments of up to seven years’ imprisonment.
Armed police guard a property in Glen Innes the day after a July 19, 2022 shooting. Photo / Michael Craig
Crown prosecutor Ryan Benic urged Judge Bergseng during the sentencing hearing to consider “just how risky this [first] act was”, with the shotgun pellets passing so close to the intended targets’ mother that she had glass in her hair. The recklessness, he said, was “incredibly high”. The judge readily agreed, referring to the “extremely high recklessness” several times throughout the hearing.
“This offending shows why vigilante justice like that is in need of deterrence,” Benic added. “Innocent people were put in harm’s way.”
Defence lawyer Jack Seton, representing Texas Doctor, asked the judge to apply a substantial credit for his client’s willingness to plead guilty, even though the admission of guilt didn’t come until earlier this year, on the Friday before their trial was set to begin.
“He showed responsibility by putting his hand up to be the shooter,” Seton said. “This also allowed other defendants in this case to plead [guilty].”
The younger Doctor’s lawyer, Jennifer Holden, sought discounts for youth and for his upbringing. She pointed out he had no prior convictions prior to the shooting arrest but acknowledged her client had cut off his electronically monitored ankle bracelet in February and was at large for nearly two months. Despite that, he showed up in court and had taken responsibility, she said.
But Judge Bergseng noted the younger Doctor appeared from a pre-sentence report to have a “sense of entitlement” and a lack of remorse towards the victims.
“You seem determined to remain in this [gang] environment,” he said.
Armed police stand guard outside a Glen Innes home after a shooting on July 19, 2022. Father and son Texas and Wiremu Doctor, both patched Rebels members, have been sent to prison for the shooting. Photo / Michael Craig
The judge also referred to the written victim impact statements from two of the women who were inside the van that was shot at. In an instant, the mood that night changed from merriment to fearing for their lives through tears, one sister said, adding that she continues to suffer anxiety and trauma.
“The events continue to haunt her pretty much every day,” the judge said of the other sister.
Texas Doctor had a significant number of previous convictions dating back to 1996, although most of them were driving offences and some dishonesty. His first violence conviction was in 2002 and he had no convictions for 10 years leading up to the shooting.
“I accept your life has been difficult in terms of having to raise your three children while your partner, their mother, has been highly addicted to methamphetamine,” the judge said, adding Texas Doctor was due credit for keeping out of the justice system for a decade. “Clearly, your focus was on your sons and raising them.”
“Unfortunately, you made a decision that to protect your family, the best way to achieve that was to become a patched member of the Rebels.”
He joined the gang in 2022, the same year as the shootings. Since then, he’s spent a significant amount of time in custody and, as a result of the judge’s sentencing decision, will continue to do so.
Three others have pleaded guilty to charges related to the shootings or their aftermath. They await sentencing.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
