Word: auckland
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...Zealand Police Sergeant Louis Ott is dealing with the fourth stabbing in an hour. It's a wet Saturday night in south Auckland, and Ott and constable Brent Stevenson are questioning a shivering youth as blood congeals in a gash to his nose. "I fell over," says the boy, blinking in the light of Ott's torch. "C'mon, bro," says Ott. "How would you feel if someone got badly stabbed tonight, and died, by the same people that did this?" The teenager, who is mysteriously wearing a clean shirt turned inside out, admits that the wound, from...
...gangs. Members are quick to agree. "I identified with the people in the gang, who were good people when I joined. I enjoyed the prestige that came with it," says Te Kotahi, 37, who has been a member of Black Power in Rotorua, about 320 km southeast of Auckland, for 17 years. "But I didn't have to go out and commit three rapes and a burglary to become patched." Te Kotahi won't give his full name for fear it might jeopardize his career at work, but claims the traditions of Black Power are part of his Maori culture...
...While ordinary folk rarely encounter gang members or fall victim to gang violence, the gangs' reputation for brutality is well deserved. Many New Zealanders remember dreadful crimes that prompted tougher laws. In 1988, a 19-year-old woman was kidnapped and taken to a Mongrel Mob convention in Auckland, where she was raped by at least 15 men, beaten, urinated on, covered in petrol and photographed over a nine-hour period before she escaped. In 1996, police witness Christopher Crean, who had testified against Black Power members who'd taken part in a violent brawl, was murdered in front...
...deal in marijuana through outlets known as tinny houses, named for the tinfoil tubes the drug is sold in. Regular police busts give a clue to the scale of gang involvement in the drugs trade. In 2005, Operation Soprano resulted in the conviction of the head of the Auckland-based Black Power Sindi chapter, Abraham Wharewaka, whose marijuana dealing operation netted $NZ35,000 a week. A rival Mongrel Mob chapter in the South Island became so bold as to sell cannabis from their clubhouse, posting a sign at the door...
...gangs set a new low in their violent history when tit-for-tat drive-by shootings between the Mongrel Mob and Black Power claimed the life of a toddler in Wanganui, about 330 km south of Auckland. Jhia Te Tua, 2, was asleep on a couch in her Black Power father's home when a bullet was fired into the house, killing her instantly. Police have charged 12 men over her murder and arrested several more in connection with the ongoing violence between the local chapters...