Gunman aims at dairy owners

The robbery, captured on CCTV, was the third robbery at the the Caspar Dairy in four years.

A dairy owner says she had a sick feeling something was about to happen seconds before a man pointed a rifle straight at her head.

Ruth Zhu, owner of the Caspar Dairy on Great South Rd in Papatoetoe, was taking out the rubbish just after 8pm on Wednesday when she noticed a car parked horizontally outside a neighbouring liquor store.

"I look at the black and white car and I just think, 'How can they park so strange?' I knew something was going to happen," Mrs Zhu said.

Minutes later, Mrs Zhu had just reached the counter when she turned around to see a man pointing a rifle at her, rushing down the aisle towards her, yelling.

Terrified, she thrust her arms in the air and slowly moved towards a door behind her.

"I saw the guy and he was holding a long gun and pointing it at me. I just stand, my hands up, and I move to the back. He was yelling loud at me, but I don't know what he say."

After yelling at Mrs Zhu, the gunman - who was followed by two other men - dropped the gun to his side and began walking around the store.

Mrs Zhu managed to activate a panic alarm hidden behind the door.

"The alarm went off - very loud - and the lights flashing and I think they scared, so [they've] run off," Mrs Zhu said.

The three men ran to their car outside the store.

Mrs Zhu's husband - who had been in the store's back room - went after the men through a back door, and the gunman aimed the rifle at him.

No shots were fired during the aggravated robbery and it is not clear if the men - who were in the store for about three minutes, Mrs Zhu said - took anything.

Counties Manukau police have released CCTV footage of the three men, said to be in their late teens or early 20s.

The gunman, described as European, was wearing a plain white hooded jumper, with the hood tied around to cover his face. He was wearing black knee-length shorts, white socks and black sneakers.

His accomplices, described as Maori or Pacific Islanders, were also wearing hooded jumpers. One was dark blue. The other robber had a distinctive blue sweater with jagged white stripes.

The trio's black and white vehicle headed towards Puhinui Rd after the attack.

Mrs Zhu said it was the third time the store had been robbed in the four years that she and her husband had owned it.