Victims of fatal Morningside police pursuit crash are named

Name: Two people dead following Auckland police pursuit, crash
Uploaded: 2017-10-23T07:40:56+13:00
Description: Two people are dead following a crash on St Lukes Road, Auckland. Police began a pursuit when the speeding vehicle refused to stop. While overtaking, the vehicle hit a tree, killing two passengers and hospitalising the driver and two additional passengers. / Video from Sam Sword

NZ Herald

24 Oct, 2017 02:17 AM2 mins to read

Two people are dead following a crash on St Lukes Road, Auckland. Police began a pursuit when the speeding vehicle refused to stop. While overtaking, the vehicle hit a tree, killing two passengers and hospitalising the driver and two additional passengers. / Video from Sam Sword

The two people who died in a crash following a police chase in a central Auckland suburb early on Monday morning have been named.

Connor Talaimanu, 29, and Sharina Storm Meuli, 25, died in the incident. They were seated in the back seat of the car when it slammed into a tree on St Lukes Rd in Morningside.

Both victims were from Auckland.

Police started pursuing the late model silver VW Golf shortly after 1am on Monday when the driver refused to stop. They followed it on to the Northwestern Motorway and on to St Lukes Rd, before the Golf crashed into a tree.

The driver survived the impact, while two other passengers received serious-moderate injuries.

A tribute page "in loving memory of Sharina" has been set up on Facebook, and several photos of the young woman shared.

The page admin described Meuli as a "beautiful young woman taken from us too soon".

Bunches of flowers had been left at the site of the crash this afternoon, and photos of the victims pinned to the tree the car crashed into.

Two people were in a stable condition in Auckland's Middlemore Hospital on Tuesday, while another crash patient had been discharged.

Aucklander Hiyab Rehman said it was 1.05am when he turned on to the Newton Rd offramp from the Northwestern Motorway, and caught sight of the pursuit.

"Then this car came out of nowhere and overtook me just six inches on the left hand side of my car.

"It was really high speed - at least 120 kilometres I reckon."

He watched the car careen through a red light and saw police chase it back on to the Northwestern Motorway headed towards St Lukes.

Rehman said the experience was a huge shock.

"If he had hit me I reckon he could have thrown my car off the ramp or something," he said.

Police said this morning they were standing firm by the pursuit policy amid criticism it leads to more death on our roads.

Assistant commissioner road policing Sandra Venables said the policy remained "fit for purpose" and was regularly reviewed.

She said it was a delicate balance between the responsibility to protect life and the duty to enforce the law.