Gang leaders agree to talk, and not fight

Press, 17 August 1979, Page 1

Gang leaders agree to talk, and not fight

PA Wellington A potentially abortive meeting between the country’s four main gangs at Parliament Buildings yesterday ended in partial agreement on the need to reduce gang confrontation and violence.

The leaders of the Stormtroopers and Black Power gangs called a truce and supported a call by the Minister of Maori Affairs, (Mr Couch), for another meeting of all the gangs at Auckland, probably on September 1. Before the meeting, Mr Couch said his main concerns were to get gang co-operation in the police arms amnesty and to convince them that intergang confrontation had to end. But just 45 minutes after

the meeting began, representatives of the Headhunters gang from Matamata, Rotorua, and Mount Maunganui walked out. At a signal from their leader, they rose and left without a word. Later one of them returned for the afternoon session. The reason for their displeasure was said to be indignation that leaders from other gangs were not present to match the Headhunters’ leadership. Mr Couch said the meeting had been only a “partial success” because of the walk-out, and because the Mongrel Mob. mostly from the central North Island, had not appeared for the afternoon session. “It is obvious that they want to get together to express their concern. They

have been having consultation, one with another, in the past two or three years. “I think this is a step in the right direction, and unfortunately, if the others had stayed we might have got a sort of total agreement. Since they didn’t it is obvious that we have got to have another meeting,” Mr Couch said. The acting national president of Black Power, Mr Abe Wharewaka, of Auckland, said his gang had handed in its weapons during the last amnesty. He would “pass the word out” to members who might, still have weapons to hand them over to the police. A Stormtrooper spokesman, Mr Jack Ternara, said he believed there was enough discipline inside the

gang organisation to ensure that rank-and-file members did what they were told. “If something is passed by the supreme council, it will be adhered to,” he said. But Stormtroopers would only hand over their wea* pons if the Headhunters and Mongrel Mob gangs also gave an assurance that they would follow suit. “We have to be honest with you that at the moment the amnesty programme will only progress in so far as those other groups will be attending the next meeting,” Mr Temara said, after the meeting broke up at 4 p.m. The discussion behind closed doors in Parliament’s Maori Affairs comi mittee room “ran the whole gambit of social problems,” he said.

Mr Couch said one of the main issues which several of the gangs had raised was harassment by the police. “They expressed that to me in no uncertain terms,” he said. He believed the meeting would result in fewer gang confrontations, and therefore the need for police involvement to keep the peace. The gang members, dressed in full regalia of layers of bedraggled denims and gang patches* stole the limelight at Par- 1 liament Buildings. They were on show, and appeared to enjoy it. When the meeting adjourned, the gangs observed strict group separatism and ate fish and chips, washed down with

beer, in the sun on the lawn in front of Parliament Buildings. The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) said he was ’‘totally in favour” of the gang leaders’ meeting at Parliament, and thought it a “worth-while effort.” He did not pass an opinion on gang members’ drinking beer in Parliament Grounds when he was questioned by reporters. He told a questioner: ’‘What do you suggest they drink—milk? Or that they drink it elsewhere?” Reporter: I don’t have an opinion. Mr Muldoon: That’s a good line to take. When another reporter quipped that it. was not Lusaka beer, Mr Muldoon said: I wouldn’t wish that

on my worst enemies. Policemen had had a “gutsful” of the gang situation, and the meeting between Mr Couch and the gang leaders was “quite worthless,” said the secretary of the Police Association (Dr R. A. Moodie), yesterday. The association would have preferred that the Government used the fare money for gang members to bring representatives from local and educational authorities, the police, Social Welfare, and Maori and Island Affairs departments together to map out a positive programme which would provide socially acceptable outlets for the energies in the gangs, he said.