KEY POINTS:
Armed robbers who held up a Wellington suburban post bank, yesterday leaving staff and customers traumatised, were still on the run today.
The masked men, one carrying a sawn-off shotgun, burst into the Bay Rd Post Shop and Kiwibank in Kilbirnie about 1.50pm, ordered terrified customers and staff to "get down on the floor" and threatened to shoot a man whose instinct was to run.
They then fled on foot with an undisclosed amount of money.
Robert Perry was sending a parcel when the robbers came in a side door.
"All of a sudden behind me I heard an extremely loud voice of two men telling everyone to, 'Get down - this is a robbery'!" he told The Dominion Post.
"I was just in disbelief momentarily. Unfortunately my instinct was to run out the door. I saw a gun pointed at me and the guy telling me, 'You run out that door, I'll f-ing shoot you'."
Mr Perry, 38, a social worker, dropped to the floor where other customers were cowering as staff carried out the robbers' demands.
"All I remember is something about a safe. I can't remember the exact sentence. I think they wanted certain people to get their wallets out."
The gunmen were "very loud and very threatening", he said.
Police said a white car was seen overtaking vehicles on Ruahine St, heading toward Mt Victoria Tunnel shortly after 2pm.
Dozens of armed police, some carrying assault rifles, swarmed on the bank within minutes, cordoning off Bay Rd and interviewing shaken staff and customers.
Despite the number of people in the bank at the time of the robbery, police are yet to issue descriptions of the offenders.
A Wellington police spokeswoman said officers had no leads in their inquiry but would like to hear from anyone who saw the white vehicle or the robbers entering or leaving the bank.
- NZPA
