KEY POINTS:
Four Mongrel Mob members are due to appear in court today facing assault charges after partygoers were attacked with a machete, knives and a baseball bat at the weekend.
Five people were hospitalised after being set upon at the 21st celebration at Bridge Pa, 10 west of Hastings just before midnight on Saturday with police say it was sheer luck they were not dealing with multiple homicides.
Three men were arrested at the scene and a fourth, believed to be the main offender, was taken into custody yesterday afternoon in Hastings.
Detective Sergeant Mike Foster said the incident was not thought to be gang rivalry.
"From what we can understand, when one of the members was refused entry to the party because he wasn't invited, he's gone away and come back with a carload of people."
Mr Foster said five people were taken to hospital with serious but non life-threatening injuries and all needed surgery.
The sight of the patched gang members rampaging through the crowd must have been "absolutely horrific", he told The Dominion Post.
"They basically stabbed and slashed and beat anybody who stepped in their way."
It was the fifth gang-related attack in Hastings in three weeks with Hastings mayor Lawrence Yule describing the attacks on innocent people as of great concern.
"It's completely unacceptable. We're going to have to get tough and deal with it."
On June 8 a 21-year-old was badly beaten by four men wearing red and black and yelling gang slang in the Hastings suburb of Flaxmere.
His terrified partner had to hide her eight-week-old baby during the ordeal.
On the same day a 34-year-old was seriously injured in an assault at the Mongrel Mob's gang headquarters in the suburb of Camberley.
Two days earlier a 27-year-old Hastings man was beaten in Camberley by several suspected Mongrel Mob members in an apparently unprovoked attack.
And on June 1 gang members walked into a 21st birthday party and assaulted three people in Camberley.
Hastings district councillor, Henare O'Keefe, whose daughter was involved in the July 8 home invasion is leading a hikoi in Hastings on Friday against gang violence.
"We're going to say to the people out there, the undesirables, who continue to invade our privacy and beat up innocent people `enough is enough'," Mr O'Keefe said earlier.
He has organised a hikoi from Flaxmere to Hastings and has appealed to the community to be involved.
Mr O'Keefe said momentum for the 8km walk, dubbed "Enough is Enough! We Are Taking Our Community Back!', was gathering strength with police and Sensible Sentencing Trust backing the campaign.
Schools and other community groups had also indicated support.
"We're really hoping people from all parts of the country are going to pick this up in their own communities,' Mr O'Keefe told Hawke's Bay Today.
- NZPA
