Saved by netball game when shots fired

The kitchen window of a Totara Street house was peppered with holes after someone fired a shotgun at it on Saturday night. The occupants of the house — a woman and her five daughters – had just gone into another room to watch the netball World Cup match on TV. Picture supplied

Mother’s video after terrifying ordeal blows up on social media

A video made by a Gisborne woman after her house was shot at on Saturday night has gone viral.

In the “Facebook Live” video, the woman and some of her daughters are in their car after a shotgun was fired at the kitchen window of their Totara Street home about 9.30pm.

Expressing her shock and disbelief at what just happened, the woman said the only reason she and none of her five daughters, aged 12 – 19, weren’t shot was because they’d just gone into another room to watch the World Cup netball on TV.

“Thank God the Silver Ferns were playing or we probably would’ve been having a tangi,” the woman said.

“Six funerals,” one of her daughters said.

“F*** this bullshit, shooting through my kitchen windows, shooting at five of my daughters and me,” the woman said.

“Twenty minutes before that we were sitting right where those bullets came through.

“What’s your problem, shooting at women and kids?

“Who even shoots at a woman and five girls in a house you  gangsters?

“You the  man all right!

“The only ones in my house are me and my girls and you shoot at us!

“You pussies, why don’t you come in the daylight?

“We ain’t leaving this town, it’s our town!

“Shooting at six females; have you not killed enough females? Are we next on your list?

“That’s how  gangsters roll these days.

“How did you earn the patch — by shooting at women? F***** heroes!

“Me and my kids should be safe in our  house not with you  shooting at my windows.”

The family’s terrifying ordeal is the latest in a series of firearms incidents that have plagued Tairāwhiti in recent years and sparked a police crackdown on gang activities including methamphetamine offending and firearms. The operation called Kotare was launched earlier this year.

According to recent police data, there have been 115 shootings in the Eastern District in the past three years. Nearly all were gang-related and had involved illegal firearms.  Thirty people had been wounded and two women killed.

Last October, a molotov cocktail was used to set fire to a house on Totara Street — the same house where a woman and two children were shot and wounded during a gang gathering in September.

Totara Street is between the two streets where two women were fatally shot last year. Chephar Hollis, 25, was at a house on Centennial Crescent when she was killed on July 3; Maraea Smith, 36, was shot on Titoki Street on March 25, last year.

Police are still hunting for Ms Hollis’ killer. Mongrel Mob couple Mercedies Grace, 31, and George Hallet Walker, 37, have been given life sentences for the shooting of Ms Smith.

Police are now appealing to the public for information to help identify people who were in Totara Street about the time of the incident on Saturday night.

“It is important that police have every opportunity to hold people engaging in dangerous behaviour involving firearms to account.

“Inquiries are continuing and there will be an increased presence in the area over the coming days as the scene is examined,” police said.

Information can be given to police by contacting 105 and referencing file number 230806/0818.

Alternatively, people can also contact Crime Stoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.