Firearms a concern to police

AUCKLAND: Police are still looking for a variety of weapons in relation to a spate of recent driveby shootings, Police Commissioner Andrew Coster says.

Rising tension between the Tribesmen and their former feeder the Killer Beez was linked to shootings in Auckland last week. There were seven across the city on one night.

Mr Coster said last evening there had also been a range of what he called lower level incidents, but did not go into detail.

‘‘The tensions have been high. The issue here is how they behave and what we’re doing there is focusing on the members on these groups, whether it’s search warrants, whether it’s any avenue we can find to put pressure on and make it clear they need to pull their heads in,’’ Mr Coster said.

‘‘We cannot sustain this kind of violence in our communities and police are cracking down on these two groups, sending a clear message about the way they need to behave.’’

There were a range of theories about why the tension had flared but he could not say the intelligence he had was 100% accurate.

‘‘I have no reason to believe this relates to drugs. I believe it relates to longrunning tensions, probably at a personal level . . . [but] I only have rumour and speculation on that front.

‘‘I can tell you no reason justifies the kind of violence that we have seen in our communities.’’

At the weekend, police said they had recovered four guns and 250 rounds of ammunition following last week’s shootings.

‘‘The weapons we’ve recovered are varied. We’ve recovered . . . four firearms. Two of those were restricted firearms.

‘‘We are very concerned about their access to firearms . . .

‘‘We are dealing with the consequence of decades here of lax gun control and we have a lot of work to do.’’

This year’s Budget set aside $208 million over four years to establish a firearms business unit within police to oversee the register and other ongoing Arms Act legislative changes. — RNZ