Auckland shooting: Queen St workers tell of gunman’s attack that left three dead

They met on the stairwell.

Going up, a man in dark clothes holding a pump-action shotgun.

Going down, workers who thought they were evacuating the downtown Auckland office building they were refurbishing because a fire
alarm had gone off.

“[He told] all of us to go up to the roof. If not, he’d shoot us,” a shaken survivor of this morning’s mass shooting at One Queen St told the Herald.

Running upstairs in terror, the man and a colleague hid on an upper floor before eventually reaching the top of the 21-level building, which carries the Deloitte motif on its exterior and is located in the country’s busiest office worker district and next to a transport hub that includes the Downtown Ferry Terminal and Britomart Train Station.

In the agony of not knowing whether they would live or die, the pair heard more gunshots as they awaited rescue from an early-morning horror that would end with three people dead – one the gunman – and at least 10 injured, a policeman among them.

It was just before sunrise when the serenity of an otherwise ordinary winter weekday in Auckland’s central business district was shattered by the boom of gunshots, scattering up to 180 tradies working at One Queen St, some forced to cower on the roof before uniformed police officers and the Armed Offenders Squad members stormed the area and rushed them to safety.

Below, the city was filling with office workers and school students, and all as hotels were packed out with teams and fans for the Fifa Women’s World Cup, which opens in Auckland tonight.

But the scene at Te Komititanga and The Cloud, next to One Queen St, which is playing host to the Fan Zone was soon off-limits to those hoping to enjoy its welcome.

“Get out of here,” a police officer yelled at those still on downtown streets and squares as the gunman remained at large.

“For your own safety, get inside.”

‘I saw a big puddle of blood’

The first sign something was wrong came at 7.22am, when a caller told police a gunman was firing shots in a building at One Queen St.

As the gunman moved upwards in the building from its third floor, workers triggered the fire alarm as they made their escape.

Others took shelter wherever they could, one describing the gunman, later identified as 24-year-old Matu Reid – who was on home detention for domestic violence but allowed to travel to the building site where he was working as a subcontractor – as appearing to be “looking for someone”.

“We were on floor 14 when he got in,” one tradie said.

“[He] ran up the stairs, floor by floor, wielding a gun.”

Another worker was making his way down after hearing the fire alarm when he was met by his distraught manager.

“He cried out ‘down, down, down’,” but once he and colleagues reached level 4 another manager suddenly screamed for them to go back up, the worker said.

“[He said] ‘up, run up, up’.”

“We went to 12, and other guys said ‘go up’, so then we went to 16 and stopped because no one knew [what was going on].”

The worker didn’t initially recognise the gunshots, because he was wearing construction earmuffs.

Later, as he and colleagues ran looking for things to hide behind, he heard gunfire coming from the stairs.

“I saw one guy, he’s using his vest to tighten his head … [I] saw a big puddle of blood around the man.”

His eventual escape would be across bloodied stairs, amazed he wasn’t among the casualties.

“I was just shaking. Why didn’t he shoot me? I was last, and I walk slowly.”

Another worker described barricading a door and hiding under a desk with colleagues after hearing multiple gunshots and seeing the gunman “walking around with his gun”.

“It was daunting because the door was quite slim and someone could have pulled it off. Being young you don’t think of mortality too much, but sitting there drove it in,” the man told The Australian.

When he was eventually able to escape, he saw a hard hat “spattered” with blood.

“Everyone scattered.”

‘There’s a guy with a shotgun … and he’s aiming for people’

It was just before 7.30am when dad-of-one Naveen, who’d spent the night doing traffic management for construction staff, noticed workers spilling out from the building.

They were “really scared”, warning him of a man with a gun.

“[They said] ‘there’s a guy with a shotgun in his hand and he was aiming for people’. They put the fire alarm on and told people to move out.

“My wife’s really scared – she’s been texting me every five minutes,” said Naveen, father to a 9-month-old daughter.

By now emergency services were swarming the area; the first police officers arrived at 7.34am, followed four minutes later by the Armed Offenders Squad, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said.

“A number of armed police are currently responding to the incident [in Auckland’s CBD] and the public is asked to please stay indoors and avoid the area,” police said at 7.39am in their first media release on the shooting.

“Further information will be provided when available.”

Overhead, the police Eagle helicopter was already circling – a caller to Newstalk ZB describing it as “flying low over Britomart” – the city’s central train terminus – and by 7.41am six ambulances had joined the dozens of police cars already on the scene.

One worker and other workers passed arriving police as they bolted from the building to the sanctuary of the nearby wharf. Others crouched behind piles of building materials near where armed police had gathered.

“The cops … they were rushing in. But he [the gunman] was already at the top of the building.”

“Everyone was in shock, some of our boys were still in the building and some were already outside.”

Others, including the worker confronted by the gunman on the stairs, began to be evacuated.

The police, he said, had “come very fast”.

‘So scary’

The first reports of someone being shot arrived at 7.45am and two minutes later it emerged a policeman had also been shot.

By 7.55am people on the street, including hundreds of schoolkids, were being ordered to go inside the HSBC building.

Meanwhile, parts of Lower Hobson, Quay, Queen, Customs and Lower Albert Sts had already been closed and commuters told to stay away. Ferries were cancelled, buses detoured and train commuters directed to exit Britomart via Takutai Square.

Three minutes later armed police were seen entering One Queen St.

Photos taken by people in nearby office buildings showed some workers crouched on the rooftop, guarded by Armed Offenders Squad members, the Waitematā Harbour shimmering behind.

While the horror of what was unfolding was beginning to become clear, many were still trying to understand how a normally humdrum weekday had turned to horror.

“People are looking around in awe and wondering ‘what’s going on?’” Newstalk ZB reporter Tomas Rice told listeners just before 8am.

Among them, Danielle Evangelista, who found sanctuary in the PwC building foyer when her bus stopped in the middle of the road, passengers jumped off and everyone began panicking.

“[Police driving past] were all carrying these big guns and I got really scared … everyone [from the bus] was in a panic, they were all running around.”

As police began to set up cordons, they were yelling at pedestrians to “go inside, go inside”, she said.

She could see around 30 police cars, and heavily armed and black-helmeted police with green backpacks on entering One Queen St in small teams of five or six.

Armed plain-clothes police were also coming in and out of the building, while uniformed officers blanketed downtown streets, gradually pushing cordons wider.

Inside, the gunman had “contained himself” within the elevator shaft, police acting superintendent Sunny Patel said.

“Our staff have attempted to engage with him. Further shots were fired from the male and he was located deceased a short time later.”

A volley of gunshots – a Herald reporter at the scene counted five – was heard at 8.08am and about 12 to 15 minutes later, Evangelista saw police rushing workers out, making them crouch behind bushes across the road from Quay St.

The workers were hugging, crying and dragging their hands over their faces in shock, Evangelista said.

“You could see the look [of terror] on their faces.”

It would be another 80 minutes before police declared the incident contained, with three dead, including the gunman, and at least 10 injured.

The city, usually bustling by mid-morning, was still and quiet.

The questions won’t be.

The experience had been “so scary”, Evangelista said.

“You don’t see [this] in New Zealand.”

Cherie Howie is an Auckland-based reporter who joined the Herald in 2011. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years and specialises in general news and features.