Mangere homicide: Tongan community leader calls on those responsible to do the right thing

Do the right thing.

That is the message being sent to two men thought to be involved in an incident that left a 28-year-old man dead and a woman seriously injured with gunshot wounds.

Police continue to hunt those responsible after a homicide investigation was launched when the victims were found on a rural road in Mangere yesterday morning.

Authorities quickly said they did not believe the shooting was random and were looking for two Tongan men.

Tongan community leader Melino Maka is strongly urging those involved to come forward.

"I think they should contact someone they trust - a family member or a church minister - because we need to get to the bottom of this and find out what's wrong,'' he told Newstalk ZB.

"While they're running, the other family is grieving the loss of their loved one."

Maka said he was surprised police had chosen to identify the hunted men as Tongan, but if that was true, he called on them to do the right thing.

"I strongly recommend that they contact someone they trust and hand themselves in."

The woman, who was taken to Auckland City Hospital with serious injuries, is this morning in a stable condition.

A police spokesman said they were due to give an update on the situation later today.

Detective Inspector Fa'a Va'aelua told the Herald yesterday that police had been talking to the woman in hospital to try to find out what had happened.

Meanwhile, cordons on Greenwood Rd, where the victims were found, have since been lifted.

Police found two people lying on the ground on Greenwood Rd, in Mangere, shortly after 6am yesterday.

The road was closed most of yesterday as officers examined the scene and forensically analysed a vehicle found there.

Fly Park manager Robert Prendergast said he saw two cars parked on Greenwood Rd when he left work about 9pm.

"It was pissing down with rain, several people were outside the cars and I thought 'What are these idiots doing outside in the rain?'. It was very strange."

He said he did not think any more of it because five or six cars were often parked on the road with people sleeping in them.

"It is normally pretty quiet down there, no street lights or houses. Just the big Watercare plant."

Sarah Davis, of airport car parking company Fly Park, said she saw a helicopter circling and police cars on Greenwood Rd between 3.30am and 4am.

"I was working when it all happened. It's all dark down those ways and it doesn't have any street lights. There's no houses, they took all the houses away from there about 15 years ago."

Chris Olsen, who runs Kiwi Shuttles is at the corner of Ascot Rd and Greenwood Rd, said people often dumped rubbish on Greenwood Rd.

"Cars are always coming down there in the middle of the night. It is where the city comes to dump its rubbish. Now two bodies have seen dumped, it's pretty sad."