Gang feud shootings: Police called to seven Auckland suburbs. Video / Hayden Woodward
Two Killer Beez members, Desmond Hiko and Joshua Baker, admitted to shooting into a West Auckland home on May 24, 2022.
It was believed to be part of a wider gang conflict, involving 21 shootings and nine arsons, that lasted for over a month.
A fellow gang member, Vincent Toby, has pleaded guilty to shooting at another house that same night and a fourth co-defendant, Chavess Turner, has admitted conspiracy to murder.
Two Killer Beez members have admitted to having shot into a West Auckland home where an infant and an 8-year-old boy were sleeping amid a monthlong gang war with the Tribesmen that became so relentless it caused a political backlash in Parliament.
Desmond Hiko and Joshua Baker were trying – erroneously – to target a rival gang member when they fired into the Henderson home just before 11.30pm on May 24, 2022. The patched Tribesmen member they wanted to send a message to no longer lived there, but his children and former partner still did.
It was one of 21 shootings and nine arsons that authorities attributed to the conflict, which lasted from May 2 that year until June 10. By the time a peace deal was brokered, Labour Police Minister Poto Williams was sacked for having “lost focus”.
Hiko, who goes by the street name “Pacer”, returned to the High Court at Auckland on Wednesday as he pleaded guilty to two counts of discharging a firearm with reckless disregard for the safety of others and unlawfully using two stolen cars. His plea comes less than two weeks after Baker, known as Stinger or Little Smoke, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years’ imprisonment for participating in the same house shooting, using the same stolen cars and participating in a Flat Bush shooting earlier that same night.
And a third defendant, Vincent Tutaki Steven Toby, aka Sneak or Violent, pleaded guilty on Friday to myriad charges including the Flat Bush shooting.
Court documents state Hiko, Toby and Baker carpooled in a stolen Mitsubishi Colt to a Glen Osborne Terrace address in Flat Bush at about 6.50 that evening – opening fire on the home with at least three guns. A patched Tribesmen member was home, resulting in a shootout between the parties. As a result, neighbours’ homes and vehicles in the South Auckland suburb were also shot.
The defendants then fled in the stolen Mitsubishi – abandoning it, with the motor still running, about 750 metres away. Four-and-a-half hours later, Hiko and Baker were in a stolen Subaru Legacy headed to the Rathgar Rd home in Henderson where the children were sleeping.
The defendants drove the vehicle down the long driveway then revved the engine until the children’s mother woke up and looked out the window to investigate.
“Multiple shots were then fired,” court documents state. “One projectile entered the window where [the mother] was standing, smashing the glass and becoming embedded in the bedroom wall opposite the window. The projectile passed closely by [her] head, causing her to fall to the ground.”
At least four shots had been fired from two guns, police later determined.
A police car outside a driveway on Rathgar Rd in Henderson, West Auckland, where a home was shot at during a night of chaos in May 2022. Photo / Hayden Woodward
At around 1.45 the following morning, police spotted the stolen Subaru at a petrol station and followed it. Hiko was arrested after he got out of the vehicle and onto a waiting motorbike.
Another Killer Beez member was later recorded in a call from prison discussing the shooting at the Henderson house. That man has maintained his not-guilty plea and awaits trial.
“Straight up brother bro, he was messaging me, ‘F***, you nearly killed my son and my baby,’” he is alleged to have said, referring to the patched Tribesmen member who no longer lived at the home. “F***, I don’t give a f***, n***a. That real gang shit, aye, we don’t care. Kids and all will get it.”
Two days after the shootings, Toby was arrested after a vehicle with him and other associates fled police in Mt Albert. Police didn’t pursue on the ground, but a police helicopter traced the vehicle as it stopped in New Windsor and a guitar bag was taken from the boot into a home. The bag, which contained two prohibited semi-automatic AR-15 rifles and ammunition, was found by police later that day in a crawlspace at the home.
A subsequent search of one of the defendants’ phones revealed photos of Baker and Toby posing with the weapons.
The Killer Beez and the Tribesmen had been longtime rivals but had co-existed in relative peace for several years when tensions started to heat up in March 2022 after Killer Beez members were believed to have shot at an address where Tribesmen were celebrating after a patching ceremony.
Tensions increased the following month after Killer Beez members were mocked by the other gang online following a filmed Auckland motorway crash involving several motorbikes.
Then all hell seemed to break loose on May 24. In addition to the Henderson and Flat Bush shootings, the night of chaos included shootings in Papatoetoe, Ōtara, Papakura, Te Atatū and Mt Albert.
Toby and Hiko could both face up to seven years’ imprisonment for the shootings they pleaded guilty to. Hiko is set for sentencing in February and Toby is scheduled to return to court next month.
Another Killer Beez member, Chavess Turner, is slated for sentencing later this month for conspiracy to murder. He has pleaded guilty to trying to plan the ambush shooting death of the Tribesmen member whose children were earlier caught in the crossfire. The scheme was thwarted and he now faced up to 10 years’ imprisonment.
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.
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