Seven drive-by shootings in one night have Auckland police scrambling to calm tensions and renegotiate a truce between rival gangs.
There have been 12 reported drive-by shootings in Auckland since Sunday.
This afternoon, police revealed there have likely been more.
But so far zero arrests have been made.
Meanwhile, innocent neighbours say they are terrified of being shot as they sleep, with bullets flying far from their intended targets.
Manakau Ward councillor Alf Filipaina, who was in the police force for 38 years, admitted: "Never ever have I seen the prevalence of the firearm incidents that we had last night. Never."
There were seven shootings in one night, some linked to a beef between the Tribesmen and its former feeder gang, the Killer Beez.
"This is a battle for the turf. And what comes with the turf is the ability to do the drugs and everything else, right? So you need to be the one controlling the area."
Filipaina is making an appeal for guns to be given up before another person is killed on the streets or in their home.
"The families of the people who are using the firearms ... need to take some ownership.
"Take some ownership of trying to get these guns off the street. We need to get them destroyed."
A bullet hole in window at an Auckland property at Marie Crescent, Te Atatu after a spate of shootings in Auckland suburbs. Photo: RNZ / Rayssa Almeida
A cease-fire previously orchestrated by community leaders, youth workers and members of the rival gangs is well and truly out the window.
Innocent Aucklanders are petrified of being shot in their own homes.
One Papatoetoe woman said the gun blasts next door had her up and out of bed, before hearing a vehicle scream off.
"What it sounded like was as if somebody was dynamiting in a quarry or something. It did sound like three noises to me, but apparently, it was guns going off."
Bullet holes in a window of a house in Phoenix Place, Papatoetoe after a spate of shootings in Auckland suburbs. Photo: RNZ / Rayssa Almeida
Over in Flat Bush, armed police have been guarding a cordoned off house on Glen Osborne Terrace.
A neighbour revealed this was the second drive-by attack on the same home in just a few days.
She was putting the rubbish out when a car drove up and opened fire. She bolted to her bedroom and watched the chaos unfold from a window.
"I came in and I looked through the window and he came out just as I got to the window and he was saying, 'my family, my kids live here'. Like he was yelling to either somebody that he was talking to in the house when he walked out or he was hoping the person that was shooting at his house would hear it."
She said she was personally not phased, saying it was normalised in parts of Auckland she had lived in, but she did fear for the safety of the children living across the road.
"I rang the police because I thought there was some kid shot, not because I thought they were shooting it at his house. I thought they were shooting the kids that are in his house."
A house seen cordoned off on Caspar Rd, Papatoetoe, South Auckland after it was shot at. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
The seven suburbs hit on Tuesday were Ōtara, Papatoetoe, Flat Bush, Papakura, Te Atatū, Henderson and Mt Albert. It follows four separate drive-bys over the weekend, a total of a dozen in just a few days.
But Superintendent Jill Rogers conceded that was not a true picture.
"There seems to be an acceptance within our community that gun violence is acceptable.
"We know there are more events that have occurred, and we encourage the community to come forward and tell us about this activity before a life is lost."
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While some shootings are connected to tensions between the rival Tribesmen and Killer Beez, some addresses appear to have no gang links.
Meanwhile, police are attempting to restore a truce between the gangs.
Efforts are also being made to seize weapons, but police were not keen to say how gangs continued to stockpile arms in the first place.
