Gunman’s final Facebook post about peace
The final message sent to friends and family by Upper Hutt gunman was one of ‘‘peace’’ – only an hour before firing his first shot.
Pera Smiler, 25, of Upper Hutt, was killed on Tuesday afternoon after earlier firing a high-powered rifle inside the restaurant, on Main St.
Police were called at 12.40pm and armed cops cordoned off the street while members of public ran for cover.
Smiler was shot dead about 30 minutes later.
According to Smiler’s Facebook page, he posted the simple message ‘‘peace’’ at 11.29am on Tuesday.
Police received calls of an armed gunman just over an hour later, at 12.40pm.
Smiler was due to face fraud charges in the Hutt Valley District Court on Thursday.
A court staff member confirmed that a warrant had been issued for Smiler on the charge, as he could not be found.
A Capital and Coast District Health Board spokeswoman also confirmed that Smiler was not known to the DHB.
On his Facebook profile, Smiler appears as a happy young man who wanted to get fit, serve his country, and make people happy.
He had worked on the mines in Perth but spoke of wanting to get into the army to serve New Zealand.
Earlier this year, Smiler was spreading a message of love on Facebook, and promised to surprise five friends this year with postcards he thought would suit them, ‘‘and make [them] happy’’.
‘‘After all the recent terrible tragedies that have happened and are happening, this world needs as much kindness as it can get,’’ he said. In January, Smiler put up a photo of himself with words about his aspirations to join the army.
‘‘I have a year to train hard and be at my physical peak,’’ he said.
‘‘So far I have just been eating healthy so here’s my before photo. ‘‘Wish me luck.’’ He said in the same post he was training for the SAS in 2016 and wanted to ‘‘serve the country’’.
Throughout the year he has been posting updates on his training progress.
Upper Hutt woman Sharon Leaf said her son grew up with Smiler, and the latter called her ‘‘mum’’.
‘‘I’m totally shattered, he was a good boy and this was just totally out of character . . . it’s like one of my own has gone.
‘‘The boys felt very highly of him. They were over last night making sure I was all right and giving me hugs and kisses.
‘‘It’s heartbreaking, heartbreaking.’’
On Facebook, Leaf asked people to hold their judgment about the man she knew, and said he had never been to prison.
A witness to the shooting, Skynet City Shop owner Tony Loveday, said Smiler spoke about his dreams to one of his female staff members who was talking to him moments before he was shot.
‘‘He had apparently applied to
utterly be in the army, but was rejected because of his criminal history,’’ he said.
‘‘He was about to put the gun down but then he was shot.
‘‘They were doing resuscitation right outside the shop.’’
New Zealand Defence Force media manager Geoff Davies would not confirm whether Smiler had applied to join the army and been rejected.
He also refused to reveal what contact the police had with the defence force about Smiler following the shooting.
At a press conference outside the Upper Hutt police station on Tuesday, Wellington district com- mander Superintendent Sam Hoyle said Smiler fired his gun at least once inside McDonald’s before he was shot outside by frontline police officers, not armed offenders squad members.
Hoyle said they could not use non-lethal options, such as a Taser, because the man was firing a ‘‘high-powered rifle’’ in a crowded central business district in the middle of the day.
‘‘The tactical options they used were the appropriate ones,’’ he said.
Upper Hutt mayor Wayne Guppy said there would be a lot of people in Upper Hutt coming to grips with Smiler’s death.