Police are at the scene of an incident on Roger St.
A shot was reportedly fired, cars crashed into each other and a window smashed with a metal bar in what a witness claims was a petrifying clash involving gang members in Rotorua.
A witness has spoken out about the 10.30am Monday incident, saying she is scared to live in thearea.
Police have arrested a man in what they described as a firearms incident. The callout forced nearby Western Heights Primary School into lockdown for about an hour.
Armed police guarded cordons off Edmund Rd at the intersections of Roger St and Joanne Cr and the Armed Offenders Squad entered the house where a front window had been smashed.
The police cordons were removed and the Armed Offenders Squad left the area about 1.45pm.
A witness, who did not want her name published, told the Rotorua Daily Post she had been on the verge of tears throughout Monday morning because of what she had seen and heard from people fighting on her street.
She said she heard aggressive yelling and cars roaring so looked out the window.
Two cars "smashed" into one another as they pulled out the driveway and drove toward Edmund Rd "still smashing into each other", she said.
She said a woman with a steel fencing post tried to "smash cars and people".
"It's so scary ... I have had enough of this. They (her neighbours) are on the booze all night with loud music playing and then in the morning they are running down the street crashing cars into each other and firing shots. This is not where I want to live. I've been petrified all bloody day but they just don't care, it's just a big joke to them."
Armed Offenders Squad at a property on Roger St. Photo / Stephen Parker
The woman said she was desperate to move but couldn't. She said she moved to the house five years ago from a nice street but now given the housing crisis she couldn't find another rental.
"There is nowhere to move to. It's been the worst five years of my life. It's completely and utterly frightening. We are bringing up two of my granddaughters and we can't let them play in the back yard most of the time."
A woman who lives at the Roger St property searched by police told the Rotorua Daily Post, after the Armed Offenders Squad had left, she was the one who called police when gang members allegedly smashed their front window with a metal bar earlier in the morning.
She said she was annoyed they were the ones being searched when they called police for help.
About six people were waiting outside the house while the Armed Offenders Squad searched the property.
Armed police man a cordon at the intersection of Roger St and Edmund Rd. Photo / Stephen Parker
One of the women waiting outside said they were told to get out of the house.
Police have been approached for comment as to why they searched the Roger St house.
Western Heights Primary School assistant principal Ben McFarlane said the school was placed in lockdown about 11.30am.
"The gates are locked and the kids are in their classrooms. Our principal Brent Griffin is currently speaking with police," he said at the time.
Police said in a statement an 18-year-old man was to appear in the Rotorua District Court on Tuesday on a charge of unlawfully carrying/possessing a firearm following an incident at a Western Heights address.
Police said they were called to the Roger St address after reports that a firearm had been discharged after an altercation between a group of people.
Police also responded to reports that a firearm was discharged near a Western Heights residential address in Rotorua on Friday night. Nobody was injured, a police media spokeswoman said on Saturday morning. Police inquiries were continuing over the weekend into the circumstances of that incident, which reportedly took place at about 6pm.
