Mother of bashing victim calls for halt to gang violence

The grief-stricken mother of the 17-year-old beaten to death in south Auckland last weekend today begged for the gang violence to stop.

Riki Mafi died in the early hours of yesterday morning after being beaten with a baseball bat in the Otara town centre on Saturday night.

Police said he was "in the wrong place at the wrong time".

At a media conference this morning, Rafi's mother, Linda Beduhn, asked for the death of her "beautiful boy" to be brought to justice in the honourable way.

"To Riki's friends and family that may be looking for retaliation I beg you, let's just stand tall and work with the police [because] we do not want any more of these boys in the hospital that my baby was in," she said.

"Let's stop this here. Let's bring this to light the proper way."

Detective Senior Sergeant Dave Pizzini said police arrested one man yesterday in connection with Mr Mafi's killing and another man was arrested today.

Mr Pizzini said 30 police officers carried out four search warrants this morning in south Auckland, and nine other people were being sought for questioning.

"We hope by end of the day to have a much clearer picture of what happened."

Mr Mafi's death is the sixth homicide investigation in the region in the past three months.

Ms Beduhn said people who know any information about her son's beating should come forward and help her family.

"We are all grieving, we will always grieve.

"To the people who are out there that may know something I beg you to come forward to help our whanau to bring this to justice."

Ms Beduhn said her family would stand tall and would not be broken by what had happened.

She said her son grew up in Hamilton and then moved to Auckland to pursue his music career after a successful trip to the Battle of the Bands competition in Canada.

Mr Mafi was a singer/songwriter and he placed fourth in the Canadian competition.

"He lived for his music, he was very talented," Ms Beduhn said.

"I am so lucky that not everything has been taken from me.

"I have his music and in every song he says 'I love you mum' and it echoes three times."

Last weekend's attack happened two weeks after a fight in Otahuhu which ended when a man was dragged to his death underneath a car.

A youth was shot dead at the same spot a month earlier.

Police attributed the killing to turf wars between a Pacific islands street gang and a Maori street gang.

- NZPA