THREE KILLINGS TWO GENERATIONS ONE FAMILY NO JUSTICE
THIS IS A STORY of three lives and three deaths. Of three men whose names you probably won’t know: Wallace Whatuira. Poto Whatuira. Sam Culling. All members of one family. All shot point-blank in separate incidents. All killed in as ruthless a way as you can imagine. And in none of the cases was anyone found guilty of murdering them. So this is their story, the story of those who loved them, and the story of those who killed them.
They aren’t cases that captured great public interest or sympathy – they’re stories from the wrong side of the tracks, from suburban side roads and scruffy cul-de-sacs in Manawatu. They’re stories of gangs, guns and drugs. Of standovers, terrified witnesses, smuggled notes, and allegations of official cover-ups. Of houses being torched and people being stabbed at funerals. Of rivalry and revenge.
And this is the story of how, despite police efforts, there has never been any accountability; the story of the family members left behind, let down, and the children growing up without their fathers. It’s a story that opens a window on a world most of us aren’t aware of and have never experienced.
And throughout everything there’s blood: blood brutally spilt, and the blood that ties together the family who feels the justice system has completely failed them.
ONE.
WALLACE WHATUIRA
Aged 16.
Killed Wednesday, 6 February 2002, 26 Coventry St, Palmerston North.
“Things go on around here.”
Resident, Highbury, Palmerston North.
THE KID just wouldn’t stop looking at him. As David Dawson and a student practised martial arts on his driveway, he noticed the boy, crouched under a tree across the road, studying what they were doing. Step, strike, step, strike, Dawson went through his moves with a katana, the kid’s gaze glued on them.
“And his stare was so intense, it started unnerving me,” recalls Dawson. “So I excused myself from my student and walked across the road to him but he didn’t respond, so I went round the fence, got down underneath the tree, and touched him. And he was really ice-cold. I tried to feel round his neck. Now, I’m not a bloody medic, but I couldn’t feel a pulse. So I lifted up his shirt – and put my hand straight into the wound, at the top of his stomach. And he’d bled out. I mean, the blood was down both legs.”
Hunched under the tree at the front of a stranger’s property, Wallace Whatuira had been dead for hours.
Sixteen-year-old Wallace had been hard to handle at times when growing up, and was already a Black Power prospect. The evening before, he’d been drinking at the Palmerston North home of his uncle, John Whatuira, who was the president of Manawatū Black Power.
He left the Pembroke St house with other gang members shortly before 2am, on their way to see an associate in Botanical Rd. For some reason, they cut up Farnham Ave, past Cowley Place on their left; the cul-de-sac was a well-known Mongrel Mob stronghold in Highbury, part of Palmerston North’s western suburbs – or Westside, as locals call it.
Another 16-year-old with Wallace told police what happened next. “As we were walking along, I could hear barking and people running towards us. We realised the Mutts were behind us.” (The Mutts were the Mongrel Mob, and their barking was a gang call.)
“As the Mutts were approaching us, they were saying, ‘Come on Niggers,’ and barking.” (Niggers is a nickname for Black Power.)
Up to eight Mob members then rushed out of Cowley Place, armed with weapons including baseball bats and knives. The youth was able to identify three assailants: Leon Hakaraia, who was his uncle, Andrew Popo and John Waara.
“Leon ran up to John and Andrew and in between them… As he did this, he jumped in the air and fired a firearm from chest height. As this happened, his scarf fell down off his face. He fired one shot. I didn’t recognise the firearm but saw the sparks as it was fired.”
The shotgun blast hit Wallace Whatuira at short range, tearing into his torso. As everyone scattered, Wallace staggered about 200m around the corner into Coventry St, where he knelt down under a tree to die, his body discovered several hours later by David Dawson.
Dawson still lives in the same house on Coventry St. He’s largely blind now, but he can’t forget the images of the boy he found across the road that morning.
“He hadn’t even started living. Shit, I had socks and shoes older than him.”
Dawson called 111, police arrived and locals started gathering. When a reporter from the Manawatu Evening Standard phoned another Coventry St resident, a child answered, so the reporter asked where their mother was. “She’s outside looking at a dead person,” the child replied.
Other neighbours immediately knew what was behind the killing. “It’s a gang-related problem that brought all this mess around our street.”
TENSIONS BETWEEN Black Power and the Mongrel Mob had been rising for months, with attacks and drive-by shootings forcing Palmerston North mayor Mark Bell-Booth to mediate. Eventually, a secret treaty was signed, in an effort to keep the peace.
But all that disintegrated with Wallace Whatuira’s murder. Gang members from other towns flooded into Palmerston North, armed police patrolled Highbury, and on the day of Wallace’s funeral, the gangs clashed at the site where he’d died. Emotions escalated when Hakaraia was arrested for Wallace’s murder, and Popo and Waara were charged with manslaughter.
Police raided houses throughout High-bury, finding bins full of Molotov cocktails, drugs and firearms, and making numerous arrests. Supported by police in riot gear, Housing New Zealand began evicting some Cowley Place tenants. One resident told the Manawatu Evening Standard the gangs should be put in “a paddock with guns and left to blow themselves away”.
John Whatuira, Wallace’s uncle and head of Black Power, fired back, insisting the gang loved the community and the people in it. “They see our spine [gang patch] before they see our hearts. They see the patch before they see what’s inside. Gangs are against shooting young fellas. Beat him up, for sure, but he’s just a kid. Why go that far with a kid? ... We’re getting dumped on by the cops and getting the blame for everything. But I tell you this, it stops here.”
THE REPORTER ASKED WHERE THEIR MOTHER WAS. “SHE’S OUTSIDE LOOKING AT A DEAD PERSON,” THE CHILD REPLIED.
Of course, it didn’t.
Clashes continued. More arrests were made. Hui were held. Cabinet ministers attended. Locals railed against the gangs. And the fighting went on.
On the eve of the anniversary of Wallace’s death, the leader of Black Power offshoot Mangu Kaha, Brian Taylor, and three others lured Mongrel Mob president Sovite Sua out of his Ferguson St house and shot him. Sua spent a week in hospital but survived. Taylor was sentenced to 14 years in jail for the shooting and a host of other charges.
The war continued, with Wallace’s name a rallying cry, his blue bandana a totem, but the young man himself often forgotten.
HE WAS KNOWN as “Wolza” but his full name was Wallace Stanley Whatuira. In his short life, he’d lived in Gisborne, Dunedin and Palmerston North after his parents separated early in his childhood. At a public meeting following Wallace’s death, Highbury Whānau Centre coordinator Peter Butler read from Wallace’s file: “History of exclusion and truancy. Difficulty reintegrating. Moving around from town to town makes it hard for Wallace to settle into a school.” Butler put it bluntly: “No one wants him.”
Wallace had spent three months in a youth justice centre when 14, for a series of non-violent offences. While there, he was in a play, Mokopuna: Our Daughters, Our, directed by actor Jim Moriarty. He described Wallace as “a beautiful young man” whose performance stole the show.
