Witness: Pretty sickening to see the whole thing

Michelle West saw the fatal shot that felled the hostage-taker in Reyburn St yesterday.
The 19-year-old Resene colour consultant, who works opposite First Mobile, said the woman opened the door of the shop and was shot by a member of the police Armed Offenders Squad from behind a car across the road.
She said the woman dropped to the floor and did not move again. Miss West said the woman was acting "pretty nuts" just before she was shot.
An hour after the shooting, the victim was still lying motionless on the ground.
"It was pretty sickening, considering I saw the whole thing," she said.
She said moments before the shot rang out the woman looked across the road.
"I assume she saw the armed offenders guy across the road, who was leaning on a car bonnet with his rifle. Then she just got shot. She had a gun. It didn't look like a rifle, more like a shotgun."
Miss West said she and her colleagues in the paint shop, who had been following the drama unfolding across the road, had earlier been told by police to move.
"They told us to get back from the window and get to the back of the store. We did it. We weren't going to resist that one."
The shooting had left her "pretty shaken up". She said an ambulance arrived, but left without taking the woman, whose body remained on the shop floor for at least an hour.
Photographer Colin Probst, of Reyburn St's Making Faces Studio, said he was working out the back when police called him to say there had been an incident across the street, urging him to stay inside and lock the door.
"I could see the armed offenders squad members rushing about ... I went to the window and started taking pictures.
"I saw medics doing CPR on a body."
Northland Farm Services workers Garry Shaw and Shane Findlater had just pulled up in the service lane outside the Vodafone shop when they spotted armed police frantically waving at them.
"They were sort of hiding behind a building at the street but yelling and waving at us to head towards them," Mr Shaw said.
Mr Findlater said when he saw the policeman had a gun he started walking faster.
"You don't expect stuff like this to happen in Whangarei - in the big cities, but not here in this street," Mr Findlater said.
Go Go Espresso owner Glenn Lambert was enjoying a coffee outside his shop when he spotted staff members running out of the Vodafone shop across the road.
"It looked like half of them got out and were just running," he said. Shortly after, police told Mr Lambert and a few customers to get inside, from where they watched the action through the front window until they were told to evacuate.
With the street cordoned off, Mr Lambert decided to shut up shop and head home.
Chris Duncan of Konica Minolta said the photocopying business wasn't usually so exciting. Armed police entered the building about 9.30am, using the offices and roof to keep an eye on the First Mobile shop across the road.
"A guy wearing all black came up to the building and said there was something going on ... I didn't expect it to be anything big, so I just kept on working. But when more and more cops started coming up, I kept one eye out the window to see what was going on."
Soon about 15 armed police were stationed in the building among the photocopiers, with an armed officer stationed outside.
Lynette Hitchinson, formerly of South Africa, said she sadly felt "at home" during the drama.
I was looking out the window and I saw her come out with a shotgun in her hand, then head back in and bring out the man in the shop. He was bending down on the floor like he was looking for something, and she was pointing the gun at him."