KEY POINTS:
The night Paul Shane Kumeroa was bashed to death outside the home of Clare Lawler and Stephen Hurley, was the night the young couple decided it was time to leave.
At age 9 months, Dominic is oblivious to the fears of his parents as he crawls around the
lounge of their rented home, testing the patience of the ginger cat curled up on the carpet.
The couple moved into the three-bedroom house in Wanganui six months ago, attracted by the reasonable weekly rent of $210.
Stephen, 22, is a chef at a downtown hotel while Clare has her hands full caring for Dominic, with some help from mother-in-law Joyce, while juggling health science studies.
In the midst of working hard to make ends meet and learning to cope with a young child, Hurley and Lawler fear being caught in the crossfire of gang rivalries.
Police have yet to catch the killers of Kumeroa, a young father who was walking home when a silver Mitsubishi Galant pulled over and the occupants assaulted him in a vicious and apparently unprovoked attack.
He died in Wanganui Hospital from his injuries. The car was found later, burned out.
While they were asleep in their Cross St home, the young couple has no doubt who is to blame - gangs.
Simmering tension between gangs, particularly Black Power and Mongrel Mob, has boiled over in recent times, prompting Wanganui leaders to draft the Gang Insignia Bill.
The ban on gang patches in specific public places becomes law in January, but Hurley says the new powers "won't do shit" to calm the escalating violence.
Flowers mark the spot where the 28-year-old Kumeroa was left to die in Castlecliff, a suburb in the heart of Black Power turf. He was not a gang member or affiliate, say police, but speculation is rife Kumeroa was wearing red, the Mob's colour, and had family links to the gang.
Regardless, Hurley wants to move his family to safer ground.
"We're not intimidated by them. It's the gangs versus the gangs, not the gangs versus the public. But we have to move out," he says.
"The violence is getting worse and we don't want to be caught in the crossfire. All it takes is one stray bullet into baby's room ... "
One stray bullet killed toddler Jhia Te Tua one night in May last year.
The 2-year-old was asleep inside her Puriri St home when 14 Mongrel Mob associates coasted past in three cars without headlights turned on, and opened fire with a .303 rifle.
The toddler was hit by a single shell that went through a window and into the back of the couch where she was lying. She was the daughter of a Black Power member, Josh Te Tua. The bullet was meant for him.
The drive-by shooting was the climax of months of rising gang tension, said Justice Warwick Gendall at the sentencing of two men who were passengers in the car from which the fatal shot was fired.
Tyrone Box, 19, and James Challis, 20, were sentenced to seven years in jail after pleading guilty to charges of manslaughter and taking part in organised crime.
Last week the Court of Appeal reserved its decision on their application to have their sentences reduced.
At the High Court at Wellington in July, Gendall said macho posing escalated the events that led to Jhia's tragic death.
Black Power members, including Josh Te Tua, and Mongrel Mob supporters clashed at a rugby league game earlier on the Saturday.
Later that day, a Mob-linked group went looking for Black Power members. Bricks were thrown at their car windscreens so they returned later with more firepower.
"This was gang warfare at the most reprehensible level," said Gendall.
The remaining accused will stand trial for Jhia's murder in the High Court at Wellington next month.
Today, Puriri St looks like any other suburban street in a provincial town like Wanganui.
Children ride bikes outside the state house where Jhia was murdered, potbellied men in singlets and gumboots mow the lawns in the fading spring light as young couples walk their dogs along the footpath.
Contrary to popular perception, patched gang members do not stand on every street corner intimidating law-abiding citizens.
The Herald on Sunday had to find gang pads to glimpse patched members, with the Hell's Angels' Aramoho compound the only overt symbol of gang power in the town.
But there is considerable fear and loathing in Wanganui.
Residents of Puriri St, surrounded by Black Power homes in nearby streets, were too scared to be named in this article. A retired couple, who has lived in Wanganui all their lives, say gang violence is getting worse, but there was no point speaking out "just to wake up with a firebomb through your bedroom window".
Gang prospects, or "wannabes" as they're known, are to blame for revenge and retaliation among rival gangs. With nothing to lose, and something to prove, the "wannabes" are far more aggressive than their patched brethren.
Wanganui residents fear being caught in the middle and many say the Gang Insignia Bill, drafted by the Wanganui District Council after Jhia's death, will do little to make their streets safer.
The ban has parliamentary support, with the law and order select committee last month recommending passing the bill into law.
Some say the ban, delayed until the New Year, will spark more confrontations as police enforce the law on gangs, or worse, drive organised crime underground.
"I thought gang patches were banned?" a cheeky barista asks Wanganui MP Chester Borrows, pointing at a National Party rosette pinned to his suit jacket.
The former police detective chuckles and pretends to turn it over. Borrows, elected at the 2005 election, knows some are sceptical of the ban.
"It's not a silver bullet, it's not a magic pill, but people have the right to go about their business without being scared. Everyone is sick of these guys. And this is the first step."
Wanganui's gang problem is no worse than any other provincial town, says Borrows, it's just that the River City - led by Mayor Michael Laws - decided to do something about it.
Jhia's murder was the tipping point, says Borrows, the climax to 18 months of growing tension.
There is a gulf between the perception of Wanganui and reality, he says. "But it is ridiculous that kids can't wear certain colours to school because they're gang colours."
Black Power, Mongrel Mob, Hell's Angels and recent arrivals, the Tribesmen, operate in Wanganui.
The turf war began escalating in 2006 says Borrows, marked by an all-in brawl between the Hell's Angels and the Mongrel Mob at a petrol station, over the battle to control the drug market.
Gangs no longer peddle cannabis but have moved to the more lucrative methamphetamine, leading to rising violence, says Borrows.
In February, the town's Mongrel Mob president, Peter Nahona, 43, was jailed for eight months after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiracy to sell methamphetamine.
He was among more than 60 gang-related arrests following the shooting of Jhia.
The Gang Insignia Bill will not challenge the drug trade, says Borrows, but remove the need for gang members to "defend their patch".
Stronger measures are in the legislation pipeline. The Government is monitoring a ban on gang membership in South Australia, while the pending Proceeds of Crime Bill would allow police to scrutinise gang finances, where gangs have to prove something was purchased with legitimate money.
The National Party, which is making law and order an election issue, is considering law changes to provide harsher sentences for gang members, and to give police more powers to storm their fortifications.
"The people who join gangs have nothing. In a gang, the lowest of the low can have booze, money, drugs, transport and acceptance," says Borrows. "We have to take those incentives away."
Opponents of the bylaw such as Rob Vinsen, a retailer recently elected to the council, couldn't agree more with Borrows' comments on cracking down on organised crime.
Except, Vinsen says, the bylaw will achieve nothing but tarnish the reputation of Wanganui.
"We're suffering from bad publicity. Immediately, it says we have a crime problem, that we're a gang city. But telling them to take their jackets off isn't going to do anything."
For 35 years Vinsen has been in business on Victoria Ave, the main street downtown, and say he has never witnessed a gang confrontation.
In the past five years only seven incidents have been recorded in the CBD, three of them involving the same two "low-lifes" says Vinsen, quoting police figures. Ironically, the single most dangerous place for violence involving gangs is the Wanganui District Court - where patches are banned.
But the bylaw does not apply to the gang pads in Kaikokopu or Puriri St, which are not public places, and are where Vinsen says Wanganui residents feel most threatened.
"If it was going to affect crime, I'd support it.
"We should drop the whole thing, look at the laws in Australia which target their criminal activities, rather than the jackets they wear."
"I'm not going to say we don't have a problem with gangs," says Inspector Duncan MacLeod, "but the reputation is far from reality."
When asked, "How many gang members have you seen walking around Wanganui causing trouble?", the answer is one - and he was leaning over a fence talking to his neighbour.
A veteran of the force for 33 years, MacLeod says the patch ban is a "local solution for a local problem", but believes the problem has been blown out of proportion by high-profile crime like the murder of Jhia.
Generations of gangs have become accepted by the people of Wanganui, said MacLeod, but the ban is a message that intimidation would not be "tolerated in our town".
He says the legislation could have prevented Jhia's death but was reluctant to link Kumeroa's murder to gang violence.
Only sparse information has trickled through since the September 23 murder, with police appealing to the public in the Wanganui Chronicle, promising all tips would be treated in "strictest confidence".
Rumours Kumeroa was a relative of Michael Kumeroa - one of the 12 Mongrel Mob associates accused of Jhia's murder - and was bashed by Black Power in a revenge attack, were "drawing a very long bow".
MacLeod says Kumeroa was not a gang member, nor was the attack a gang retaliation. But he admits it is likely the offenders are linked to gangs. "We solve crime on evidence and facts, not innuendo and speculation."
But speculation is more than enough for Stephen Hurley and Clare Lawler.
The fear of being caught in gang crossfire is more than enough to entice the young couple to pack up.
"I always said we would move out if there was any gang-related violence. What happens if it gets worse? We just have to get out."
