Auckland shooting: Two dead in New Zealand shooting just hours before World Cup
Just hours before New Zealand opened the 2023 Women’s World Cup tournament a shooting in Auckland killed two people.
Six others, including police officers, were injured and the gunman is also dead after the incident at 07:22 (19:22 GMT) on a construction site in the central business district.
PM Chris Hipkins said the attack was not being treated as a terrorist attack and the wider public are not at risk.
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown said the shooting was not in any way related to the Women’s World Cup.
Matu Tangi Matua Reid, 24 has been identified as the shooter. He went through the construction site with a pump-action shotgun, plunging the busy centre of New Zealand’s largest city into lockdown.
The man was known to police and had a history of mental health issues. He had been subject to a home detention order but had an exemption to work at the site. He did not have a license to own a firearm.
PM Chris Hipkins addressed the victim’s families in a televised speech, saying, “The whole nation is mourning with you”.
“The victims went to work this morning as they do every morning, but they won’t be coming home tonight,” he said.
Police will look specifically into how the man got hold of a firearm despite New Zealand’s strict gun control laws.
