Shooting scene revisited
A week ago, a gardening volunteer was running through a ‘‘hail of bullets’’ as police opened fire on Christchurch gunman Tolu Ma’anaima.
Yesterday evening, the community of Richmond came together for a barbecue with police to put the ordeal behind them.
Police brought the barbecue and the food to Avebury House, a community hub, on Eveleyn Couzins Ave where the shooting unfolded, after Ma’anaima crashed his car into the kerb following a police pursuit then started shooting at police.
Ma’anaima started shooting at the police after a pursuit.
Avebury House manager Tanya Didham was not there at the time, but arrived the next morning to a police cordon around the property.
One of Didham’s colleagues joked that she should check the house for bullet holes. Then Didham found a bullet hole in a window upstairs.
‘‘I walked in here [and saw] a carpet of glass shards. I had to notify the police they had an extra crime scene on their hands. The whole lawn was a crime scene.’’
Didham said an Avebury House gardening volunteer was on his way to a meeting when he got caught in the firing line.
He thought he was seeing a police pursuit, but then heard shots being fired, Didham said.
He hid behind a bush and filmed on his phone as bullets flew through the air. Luckily, he was not injured, she said.
‘‘He was running down the driveway in a hail of bullets essentially.’’
Richmond residents association chairwoman Hayley Guglietta was in the building at the time.
‘‘We saw our missing community member was right in the thick of it all,’’ Guglietta said. ‘‘We ran and shut the doors and got our guy inside safely. Gosh we were lucky, that’s what we’ve all been feeling this week.’’
They had watched as
the
car crashed into the kerb followed by the quick volley of shots being fired. They waited for police to see them, then they carried on with their meeting, ‘‘planning cool things for Richmond’’.
The community was still shocked by what happened, and the barbecue was a way of putting it behind them, she said.
‘‘The event was out of the blue . . . It wasn’t about Richmond, it was about someone else coming into our space and disrupting our lives. Tonight’s about saying that’s not cool.’’
Community staff showed The Press five bullet holes, likely to be from police guns that missed their target – one in the window, one in a tree and three in a storage shed.
Canterbury metro commander Superintendent Lane Todd would not comment on the bullet holes or the crime scene as it was before the courts.
Todd said police would offer the community victim support if needed.
Resident Trevor Ball was sitting on the balcony at his flat when the shooting began.
‘‘The people I have spoken to, they were quite concerned if there were any other active offenders out there involved,’’ Ball said. ‘‘There’s not, we’ve got them currently before the court.’’
He said he wanted to forget about it what happened. ‘‘It’s terrible but it’s all a blank now, I’ve been stressed.’’
The residents needed ‘‘a blowout’’, he said.
‘‘It doesn’t happen very often. We’ve come to relax and enjoy the company.’’ Scientists have again debunked the myth of a link between vaccinations and autism.
A new Danish study has found that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination does not trigger or increase the risk of autism in children. The controversy around whether there was a link began in 1998 after a British paper was published alleging (MMR) vaccine caused autism.
That study, based on 12 children, was found to be fraudulent and widely rejected. It has since been withdrawn. However, the most recent study on the topic has again debunked those myths.
It found the MMR vaccine did not increase the risk of autism. It also found that it did not trigger autism in susceptible children, and was not associated with clustering of autism cases after vaccination.
The research paper stated the hypothesised link between the MMR vaccine and autism continued to cause concern and challenge vaccine uptake overseas.
The study looked at all Danish children born between 1999 and 2010; more than half a million.