Police to interview drive-by suspect

The shooting victim had to have a slug gun pellet removed from his abdomen. Photo / Herald on Sunday

Napier police investigating a random drive-by shooting in which a man was shot with a slug rifle will today interview a potential suspect.

The 50-year-old man was shot in the stomach while socialising with friends outside the Thirsty Whale bar on West Quay in the suburb of Ahuriri, central Napier, about 2.30am Sunday.

The man was lucky to escape with only minor injuries, but had to seek treatment to have the slug pellet removed from his abdomen.

Police believe the shot was fired by one of several occupants of a silver Nissan Skyline GTS sedan that passed by just metres away.

They said yesterday they were close to making arrests.

Detective Sergeant Emmet Lynch said today a possible suspect had agreed to a police interview later in the day.

"Obviously we'll be treating them as a suspect at this stage and seeing where the interview takes us, but we'll hope for some reasonable results later in the day," he said.

Police would also keep looking for others who had not yet "come to the surface", Mr Lynch said.

The attack was probably random and the victim was likely unknown to the offenders.

Mr Lynch said the weapon was a fairly low-powered slug rifle but could easily have caused serious injury.

- NZPA