KEY POINTS:
Police in the Cook Islands have taken into custody a 19-year-old Auckland man who is alleged to have shot three people on the northern island of Pukapuka.
The principal of Niua School, his wife and another local were shot at the weekend but were not seriously injured, the radio station Nui FM reported.
The Auckland man had been allegedly causing havoc in Rarotonga, and was sent to Pukapuka with the expectation that he would be passed on to the even more remote island of Nassau, but that did not happen.
Pukapuka is 1150km northwest of Rarotonga and has a population of about 650.
Journalist Mona Vaivai said residents were not happy that the youth had been sent home to the Cooks in the first place.
New Zealanders had been passing the buck for some time by sending disaffected youth caught up in crime back to the islands, she said.
"People who commit crimes overseas get sent here to Rarotonga for us Cook Island people to handle," she said."He is one of many."
- NZPA
