Armed Police guard the scene of a fatal shooting in Otahuhu on 23 August 2021. Peter Rasmussen died at the scene. Lasalosi Vaitohi, Ethan Jessop and Daziea Leslie Huia were jointly charged with his murder. Composite photo / NZME
Armed Police guard the scene of a fatal shooting in Otahuhu on 23 August 2021. Peter Rasmussen died at the scene. Lasalosi Vaitohi, Ethan Jessop and Daziea Leslie Huia were jointly charged with his murder. Composite photo / NZME
An Auckland High Court jury was unable to reach a verdict in the murder trial for three Crips gang members.
The defendants were charged after 75-year-old Peter Rasmussen bled to death in his kitchen from a single shotgun wound to his lower leg.
Jurors reviewed multiple calls from prison in which the gang’s leader appeared to plot revenge, but a defence lawyer called it meaningless bravado.
Justice David Johnstone discharged the jury late yesterday afternoon after jurors indicated for thesecond time in as many days they could not reach a consensus on the charges against Lasalosi Vaitohi, 33, Ethan “Crave” Jessop, 25, and Daziea “Aggro” Huia, 21.
They had been deliberating since Thursday last week for a total of about 22 hours.
The deadlock marked the second time a trial for the trio has ended without resolution. In 2023, Justice Johnstone aborted a trial on the same charges after one day for reasons that remain suppressed.
The next trial date is not expected to be decided until next month.
Vaitohi — described as the leader of the 23s, a local offshoot of the Los Angeles-based Crips — was not in attendance yesterday as the judge’s decision to end the trial was announced. He missed the majority of the trial, opting instead to stay in his cell at Paremoremo prison, appearing only briefly in court via audio-video feed, his face displayed on a TV screen above the jury box in a High Court courtroom at Auckland.
Death of Obey’s grandpa
Ōtāhuhu resident Peter Rasmussen bled to death in his kitchen on the evening of August 22, 2021, days after New Zealand had returned to a strict lockdown due to Covid-19.
Prosecutors allege the trio were primarily trying to target the 75-year-old’s grandson, Zahrn Rasmussen — a Killer Beez member known as “Obey” suspected of having robbed a Crips-controlled drug house days earlier. He was living with his grandfather on electronically monitored community detention but was not home when the shooting occurred.
Of the three defendants, only Jessop was accused by prosecutors of having gone to the home. The other two were charged with murder for allegedly having aided in the planning of the deadly confrontation.
Peter Rasmussen, 75, was shot to death by Ethan Jessop at his Otahuhu home on August 22, 2021.
It is believed Jessop opened fire from an estimated six to 10 metres away with a shotgun he had nicknamed Big Bad Beth when the elder Rasmussen tried to shoo him away from the home.
Zahrn Rasmussen discovered the body several hours later. Prosecutors told jurors at the outset of the trial he would be a possible witness but he never appeared in court.
None of the defendants gave evidence during the trial.
Jessop’s lawyer acknowledged, however, that he was the shooter. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter mid-trial, but prosecutors forged ahead with their allegation of murder.
Message ‘down the barrel of a gun’
Defence lawyer Emma Priest described the shooting as “senseless” and rightly disturbing. Still, she insisted there was never murderous intent behind the roughly 100 pellet wounds caused by the single shotgun blast. Jessop had no idea that shooting someone below the knee would result in death, it was suggested.
The Crown disagreed.
“The risks of shooting an elderly man are obvious to you, and you can be sure they were obvious to Mr Jessop as well,” Crown prosecutor Gareth Kayes told jurors during his closing address last week.
Ethan Jessop appears at an earlier hearing in the High Court at Auckland, charged with the murder of 75-year-old Peter Rasmussen at his home in August 2021. Photo / Jason Oxenham
“Mr Jessop fired without quite knowing where he would hit Mr Rasmussen because he didn’t care about the consequences. He was clearly reckless about where he might hit him, and he consciously ran the risk he might kill him...
Prosecutors never alleged the trio had premeditated a scheme to kill the elder Rasmussen, but such a scenario wasn’t necessary to prove what the courts call “reckless murder”.
The priority, Kayes alleged, was to confront and shoot the rival gang member. But if that wasn’t possible, he said, the group intended to “frighten and intimidate” by firing shots into the home regardless of who might be inside.
“Each of the defendants knew that someone being killed was a probable consequence of their plan,” he said. “They knew ... there was a real risk someone would be shot and killed.”
Police at Peter Rasmussen's home in August 2021 after he was shot dead. Photo / Michael Craig
He emphasised that Vaitohi and Huia did not need to foresee the risk that Peter Rasmussen specifically might be killed. They are guilty of murder, he said, if they recognised the risk that anyone might be killed.
They all intended to send a message, Kayes said, and “that message was clearly going to be delivered down the barrel of a gun”.
‘Only for a 187′
Much of the Crown’s case, and a good portion of the closing address, was focused on calls Vaitohi had made from prison before and after the shooting. Jurors asked to re-listen to the calls several times during their deliberations.
“The thing why we have to do this, so everyone knows that our gang ain’t to be f***ed with,” Vaitohi told Jessop three days before the fatal shooting. “Sends a message, like you know, f***, our team is f***ing, siana [man] we’re the team now.”
On a follow-up call six hours later, he continued: “That’s our style, cuz. We’ll just pull up, do the damn thing – no little chit-chat. F***, just do the damn thing.”
Crips 23 gang leader Lasalosi Vaitohi has been on trial for murder in the High Court at Auckland, accused of orchestrating a shooting that resulted in the death of 75-year-old Peter Rasmussen at his Otahuhu, South Auckland home. Photo / Supplied
On a call with another associate, Vaitohi was warned Obey’s grandfather lived at the same address. "
“I don’t care,” Vaitohi responded. “I don’t give a f***.”
In a call with Huia, Vaitohi discussed him going to the Rasmussen home and asked if he had a taahine - Tongan for “girl” but, according to the Crown, also frequently used slang for a gun.
“You drive over there and get the taahine to the cuz,” Vaitohi said. “Tell him to thing him.”
Police at Peter Rasmussen's South Auckland home in August 2021 after he was fatally shot. Photo / Michael Craig
Later, Vaitohi was on the phone with another man still trying to source a gun, prosecutors said.
“It’s only going to come out for a 187,” the associate told Vaitohi — allegedly a reference to section 187 of the California penal code, which defines the charge of murder.
Vaitohi replied: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, tell him yeah, we need this one.”
‘Meaningless bravado’
“When you considered the calls, the picture is pretty clear,” Crown prosecutor Kayes said of Vaitohi. “He was not only part of the plan — he orchestrated it. ...He knew full well that someone could be shot and killed.”
“It is not some focused, sinister plan unfolding,” Priest said, describing them as hours of “vague chat” in which authorities cherry-picked key words such as “needles in a haystack”.
She suggested prosecutors were misinterpreting “187″ as meaning murder, even if that is how it is used in California gang culture.
“New Zealand is a long way from the United States,” she said. “We live life a lot differently to the United States.”
Priest said it would be safer to assume, based on Vaithohi’s own explanation in another recorded call, that the term refers only to “ruthless gang” — “r” being the 18th letter of the alphabet and “g” being the 7th.
Defence lawyer Ian Brookie, speaking on Vaithoi’s behalf but technically not representing him, agreed the language used on the calls was “quite unclear and inconsistent”.
He asked jurors not to speculate that “thing up Obey” or “thing up the house” meant “shoot”. Semantics, he said, could mean the difference between guilty and not guilty verdicts.
Defence lawyer Ian Brookie.
“Nowhere does it actually say ‘shoot him’ or anything,” Brookie said. “There’s no way they would be talking about a planned murder while they were being recorded. On the other hand, talking about giving someone a hiding ... or trashing up a house may be less of an issue.”
He dismissed much of the recorded calls as “just meaningless bravado”.
Brookie started out as Vaithoi’s assigned lawyer, but the defendant insisted after the trial began that he wanted to represent himself. The lawyer was instructed to stay in the courtroom, despite no longer having a client, after Vaitohi still declined to attend. The judge asked Brookie to advocate for the defendant independently during closing addresses — making it clear he had not taken instructions and was only giving his own perspective.
“From where I sit, Mr Vaithoi does care about his case. He does,” Brookie told jurors, noting that the defendant did appear via audio-video feed at the start of the trial to plead not guilty. “So please don’t let his coming and going ... influence the way you think about this case or start thinking, ‘If he doesn’t care about this case why should I?‘”
Priest, on behalf of Jessop, also urged jurors not to let prejudice seep into their analysis of what crime occurred.
“He is a young, tattooed member of the 23s,” she said. “That background may be distateful to you. Drugs, guns, retribution were part of the gang life.”
Defence lawyer Emma Priest. Photo / Sam Hurley
She focused heavily on evidence from a defence medical expert who told jurors that gunshot wounds to the lower extremities rarely cause death if basic measures, such as putting pressure on the wound, are taken and medical help is obtained. She pointed to two studies of lower leg wound treatment in hospitals showing fatality rates of 5% or less.
If her client didn’t think about the possibility of death, he can’t be guilty of murder, she said.
“Peter Rasmusen did nothing to Mr Jessop or the Crips gang,” Priest added. “There was no motive against him personally.
“If murder was intended, Mr Rasmussen would have been shot around the midsection of his body or the head.”
But the Crown countered that common sense would dictate that any gunshot wound risked death. Kayes noted that, because it was during lockdown and everyone was staying in their homes, Jessop would have known Rasmussen was unlikely to be discovered by neighbours in time to receive life-saving help.
“What did Mr Jessop believe was likely to happen when he used a shotgun to shoot an elderly man on his front doorstep during lockdown?” Kayes asked.
“They, all three of them, did nothing whatsoever to prevent him from bleeding to death... He left him shot and bleeding.”
‘Wildly speculative’
Prosecutors alleged Huia had contributed to the plan by sourcing a car, which defence lawyer Julie-Anne Kincaid KC disputed.
The Crown pointed to blurry CCTV footage from a petrol station in which the driver of the car that was later used in the shooting wore what appeared to be distinctive sunglasses.
Daziea Leslie Huia appears in the High Court at Auckland accused of helping murder 75-year-old Peter Rasmussen at his Otahuhu, South Auckland home on 22 August 2021. Photo / Jason Oxenham
The CCTV was compared to a selfie video Huia later took in which he appeared to be wearing similar or the same glasses.
Kincaid emphasised her client was not privy to all the calls between Vaitohi and others that jurors had reviewed at trial. At the very least, there’s no evidence Huia knew a grandparent would be at the place, she said, describing the evidence against her client as “scant” and “wildly speculative”.
Huia and Jessop, who did attend court each day, smiled and waved at family supporting them in the courtroom gallery after the trial concluded. They were taken back into custody, where they will await the next trial.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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