Shot actor had 'a desire to die a violent death'

Rob Mokaraka was caught in a custody dispute. Photo / Supplied

Actor and scriptwriter Rob Mokaraka decided to die a violent death at a time he and his former partner were in dispute over the custody of their child.

Mokaraka, 36, is in Auckland City Hospital six days after being shot in the stomach after allegedly threatening police with what they believed was a firearm.

An officer opened fire after a 111 call had warned police of an armed man. The call - actually made by Mokaraka - was followed by a confrontation in a Pt Chevalier street when the actor advanced on officers carrying a meat cleaver and what appeared to be a gun wrapped in a towel.

The award-winning actor and scriptwriter most recently enjoyed sell-out crowds in London with his play Strange Resting Places, about the 28th Maori Battalion.

Friend and mentor Pita Turei said Mokaraka's decision to trick the police into shooting him were "the actions of a normal Maori man in our times".

"Maybe they are not normally so extreme - they only end up with an assault against a police officer charge, maybe they only end up with a sentence for violence.

"I have bore witness to the way we as Maori men respond to pressure and stress. It is usually violent and tragic."

Turei, who has visited Mokaraka in hospital, would not talk about the actor's personal problems. However, others have told the Herald on Sunday that the actor was caught in a dispute with former partner Kate Parker over custody of their daughter.

Turei said there could also be links to some of Mokaraka's writing, which dealt with the Maori Battalion in World War II. He said Mokaraka's family connection to the war might carry its own tragedy.

"What was the grief they were carrying that this person felt like he needed to have a bullet in his chest?"

Turei said Mokaraka's apparent desire to commit suicide by having police shoot him needed to be discussed, considering the high rate of violent suicide among Maori men.

"We have a number of suicide pacts and copy cat suicides. If there is one suicide others will follow. So in a way Rob has lifted the bar here - he's invented a new form of suicide by police firing squad.

"We do need to accept there are two victims here. One of the victims is the policeman and the other victim is the person who was shot by the policeman. None of them can walk away from this experience without some baggage."

Turei said he believed Mokaraka called 111 because he wanted to die. "I think you can say this was a desire to die a violent death. Because he wanted the police to shoot him and that's what they did.

"If I ring the police and say there is a Maori guy here concealing a weapon under a towel and I walk outside with it, they will shoot me in the chest. That's what they did, and he was right."

Turei said he had not asked Mokaraka about the incident, and had instead offered him a karakia. "Rob is a very valuable person because he has survived and he is a person who can talk, articulate and write so he is very valuable to us all."