Retaliatory gang raid in Auckland

Press, 4 November 1986, Page 6

Retaliatory gang raid in Auckland

PA Auckland Shots were, fired during a commando-style raid at a South Auckland gang house last evening, only hours after two groups clashed inside a room in the District Court at Papakura. About 20 members of the Black Power gang marched on the Mongrel Mob’s Papakura base in Cargill Street carrying axes, exhaust pipes, iron bars, and at least one firearm. Neighbours said at least two shots were fired in the incident which occurred about 7.30 p.m. The gangs clashed where a hangi was being held in the back yard of the property.

. The police were on the scene quickly and the raiders fled. At the court earlier Judge Richardson had been forced to abandon the bench when about 10 gang members brawling with tools spilled into his courtroom. The police said that toe retaliatory raid appeared to have been stopped before retribution could be exacted. Senior-Sergeant Ray Hall, of Papakura, who was in the first patrol on the scene, saw between 15 and 20 Black Power members discarding weapons as they fled from the Mongrel Mob house. Spades, wrenches, sickles, iron bars and modified tools flew through the air towards the group of Mongrel Mob members on the back lawn of their property. His three-man patrol could do nothing as the gang members raced to waiting cars. No arrests were made. Police reinforcements from Papakura and Otahuhu found Cargill Street properties littered with abandoned weapons from where the raiders ran across backyards.