After the shootings, authorities launched an investigation dubbed Operation Kitty and were able to gain access to the Facebook Messenger group, tracing back how the drive-by shootings were coordinated. On November 20, five gang members arrived via ferry from Picton, and 20 from Hamilton, authorities allege. After a meeting at Crawford’s place, three convoys consisting of 10 vehicles left on the rampage.
When asked via Messenger whether he hit anyone during the various shootings, Crawford told an associate he thought so, adding, “F*** I tried hard g’.”
No one was actually injured, but the shootings have had a long-lasting effect on those inside the homes or nearby when shots were fired, Justice Jagose said today. Two people, the judge noted, have told the court of the “extreme terror they felt for themselves and their children and grandchildren”.
“Your offending had continuing impact on their feelings of safety ... pushing some to relocate,” the judge said.
Like many of his co-defendants, Williams pleaded guilty to three counts of intentional damage of the homes that were shot at, one count of burglary with a weapon involving another home that was targeted on the same day and one count of participating in an organised criminal group.
He could have faced up to 14 years’ imprisonment for the burglary charge and up to 10 years for each of the others.
But defence lawyer Ish Jayanandan pointed out today that her client wasn’t actually in the convoy during the drive-by shootings. He was charged because he passed along information, but he was less culpable than those who were present during the shootings, she suggested.
She also pointed to a cultural report prepared prior to sentencing that indicated Williams, who moved to New Zealand from Samoa to live with his grandmother when he was 4, suffered an often “terrifying upbringing” that involved separation from his mother, frequent changes in his living situation, physical abuse by his father, a stint in state care that was described as having done more damage than good, and homelessness.
Williams reported that as a child his father would sometimes punish him by making him stand naked in the street on one foot in the middle of the night, hitting him if his foot fell to the ground before his father had decided he’d learned his lesson.
“He beat me like he was fighting with another man his size and age,” he recalled.
At age 8 he sought help by telling his teacher about the abuse, but the system let him down by separating him from his younger brother and putting him in foster care, the report writer said. He felt punished and rejected by his family for speaking out, he said.
He went to live with his uncle after getting expelled from Mt Albert Grammar School but eventually decided to live on the street at age 15, where he was described in the cultural report as “forgotten and left to fend for himself”.
“James shared that some days they would live in abandoned homes, graveyards and empty warehouses,” the report writer said. “James also shared that he was lucky that the oldest of their group looked out for him. She was in her 20s, Samoan, and was the mother figure to the street kids in Otahuhu.”
Most of the youth sold their bodies at night to get by, but Williams told the report writer he was a good fighter so he instead protected the younger boys and girls working at night.
At the age of 16, he committed aggravated robbery and was ordered to serve a sentence of three years and nine months’ prison. He served the time among the general population, despite his age. It was in prison where he was introduced to gang life, he said, explaining that he gained respect because he could fight and had a high tolerance for pain.
A close friendship with a fellow prisoner who was a Killer Beez member led to him joining the gang despite his Samoan heritage and it mostly being a gang with Cook Island and Tongan roots, he said.
When he got out of prison, he created the Facebook Messenger group that would later play a part in the shootings.
“When creating this group, I intended to stay in touch,” he said, explaining that it was his first time on social media. “The rest just got out of hand.”
Since his guilty plea, Williams has expressed remorse for his part in the shootings, his lawyer said. He now has a steady job and a son and was helping his partner raise her three children.
“I have stopped associating with those boys,” he told a report writer of his gang affiliation. “I know I will get slack for it, but I finally have my own family, I have found where I belong, and I know the type of life I want my sons to live - a life that is nothing like my childhood.
“I am the best person to guide him...to love him unconditionally and make better choices.”
Justice Jagose agreed today that Williams had a background of deprivation that was relevant to his offending. Although the judge started with a five-year sentence, he applied enough discounts because of his guilty plea, his age and his background to make him eligible for home detention.
The end sentence, the judge said, must take into account the defendant’s prospects for rehabilitation and reintegration.
Operation Kitty sentencings
- Michael Crawford: seven years and four months’ prison
- Anthony Paparoa Moses: five years’ prison
- William Nelson-Bell: 12 months’ home detention
- Paul Cassidy: four years and three months’ prison stacked on top of an eight-year, eight-month sentence he is already serving for serious drugs and firearms offending
- Alan Tutere Cooper: five years and two months’ prison
- Adrian Awhi: 11 months’ home detention
- Sean Conrad Thompson: five years’ prison
- James Joseph Henry Williams: 12 months’ home detention
