P-fuelled fugitive risks being shot

Tifiga Atanoa filmed at a service station on Wednesday.

Police have warned the parents of fugitive Tifiga Atanoa that there is a very real chance he may be shot if he does not give himself up.

Atanoa, who has a large growth on his neck from terminal cancer, has been on the run since April, when he failed to appear in court on a number of charges including firearms offences, dangerous driving and failing to stop for police.

This week police made a public appeal for him to give himself up. They are concerned that he is armed with a double-barrelled shotgun, taking large amounts of the drug P and becoming increasingly dangerous.

Detective Senior Sergeant Neil Grimstone said police spoke to his parents yesterday.

"We spelled it out to them in no uncertain terms the need to co-operate and offer up their son. It was put that the police are taking this very seriously and we don't want to be in a position where we have to shoot their son. However, if we are forced into that, then that's what could transpire.

"They were a bit shaken up and a bit tearful about the whole thing, but we have had to tell them exactly where we are at and let them work out what they can do."

Detective Senior Sergeant Grimstone said Atanoa had been standing over other criminals in the past few months and had little regard for the law.

"Some [criminals] have come to us and told us this guy is out of control, standing over them and stealing their drugs and guns."

Atanoa was understood to be taking up to two grams of P a day - an individual dose or point bag is usually about one-tenth of a gram. Combined with his terminal cancer, which he has refused treatment for, that made him unpredictable and dangerous.

"Out intelligence is that he is becoming increasingly ill. My concern is you get some loon like this driving around under the influence of methamphetamine and he's going to come to the notice of some young patrol car officers who are going to try and pull him over. Who knows what might happen at this point."

Detective Senior Sergeant Grimstone said Atanoa's parents had offered to co-operate with police. He hoped, for their son's sake, that this was true.

"We have left them in no doubt that if a situation develops we are not taking a baton to a gunfight. It's certainly a situation where you deal with it with an equal amount of force, bearing in mind we know what he is in possession of."

Atanoa is believed to be staying in motels around the central South Auckland area, probably somewhere in Manukau.

He was last seen on Wednesday night buying petrol and groceries from the Caltex Service Station at the Otara off-ramp of the Southern Motorway. He was driving a 1995 Toyota Rav 4, registration CTH544.

Anyone with information about Atanoa's whereabouts is urged to call police and not to approach him.

Moteliers are being warned to be extra-vigilant and report anything suspicious.

* Anyone with information should contact Papakura CIB on (09) 295 0220.