Shot man had gang and prison history

Edwin Te Haara was photographed by a security camera after he ran down a petrol station attendant in 2000.

A man shot to death in the Rotorua suburb of Western Heights had gang connections and a history of violence.

Edwin Dale Te Haara, a former Black Power gang member, was shot in the neck on Gordon Rd after arguing with a man and a woman in a vehicle on Tuesday night.

The 37-year-old, who moved to Rotorua from Auckland last April, stumbled up a driveway with a sawn-off .22 rifle before dying on a doorstep in front of a resident and her friend.

The gunman and female driver of the vehicle, who have not been identified by police, remain on the run. The shooting was less than 1km from Te Haara's home on Island View Rd. Residents in the street say he was a "tough" man who many people feared. Te Haara was jailed for running down an elderly man in an Auckland service station forecourt in 2000.

One woman, who did not want to be identified, knew Te Haara through her ex-partner when he lived in Auckland. She recalled seeing a man who resembled Mr Te Haara jogging past her house.

"When I saw him, I remember thinking he looked like the character from that PlayStation game Grand Theft Auto who used to go round killing people," she said.

"I'm freaked out now to think it was him ... I wouldn't have let my kids out on the street if I'd known."

Te Haara was called "Jack" by many people who knew him - a nickname which apparently stood for "Just Another Criminal", she said. The woman said Te Haara had been in and out of jail for various assaults and was regarded as a "prison kingpin" during at least one stint behind bars.

In October 2000, he was sentenced to one year in prison after pleading guilty in the North Shore District Court to two charges of assault involving a 70-year-old service station attendant.

Te Haara hit Glen Bennett with his car at Glenfield's BP Express Coventry service station, then drove through the station's window, with Mr Bennett on his bonnet. The drama began after he gave another attendant $10 for petrol. Te Haara served himself, but put $18-worth of fuel into his car. He said he did not have any more money.

Mr Bennett offered to pay $5 out of his own pocket for the extra petrol, but Te Haara demanded the fuel be siphoned out. After the extra petrol had been siphoned, Te Haara accused the attendants of taking too much before jumping into his car and driving through the window.

Mr Bennett, now aged 76, still works at the service station on Wairau Rd, and told the Daily Post he remembered Te Haara's "blind rage" vividly.

"I can still see the glass coming down on me ... I always reckoned he would kill someone, but I didn't think he'd be the one to get shot."

The Island View Rd woman said if this week's shooting was gang-related, there would be retaliation.

"The gunman will have a target on his head now."

Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Loper of the Rotorua police would not comment on whether the shooting involved gangs or drugs. Police still want information about the identity of the two people seen speeding from the area on Tuesday in a green Mitsubishi RVR. The driver was a female of light complexion with a shoulder-length ponytail. A male in the car had a dark complexion.

Results from an autopsy examination of Te Haara's body were expected today.

Gordon Te Haara, an uncle in Northland, said he hoped his nephew would be laid to rest at Ngawha Marae in Kaikohe as soon as police released his body.

- DAILY POST (ROTORUA)