How ‘generational anger’ led to chaos in down town Auckland

Many tried to give Matu Reid a hand up during his troubled life. On Thursday morning, he let those hands go, and picked up a shotgun. Mike White and Tony Wall report on the attack that shocked downtown Auckland, and the entire country.

In the first hours, after Matu Reid had gunned down two people, seriously injured several others, and lost his own life in a shootout with police, the Facebook photo of him that began circulating, helped.

It put a face to the inexplicable events of early Thursday morning, someone to blame, a low resolution explanation for what happened.

There he was, several years earlier, holding a certificate for a driving course he’d passed, distressed-camo T-shirt, his tongue sort of poked out, cap on backwards.

He was standing beside a white house, which seemed to have a short string of fairy lights strung along one wall.

“Ready for the Road” the certificate said.

At the right-hand edge of the picture, however, is the faintest hint of another person.

It’s just their hand, a woman’s left hand, a ring on her small finger, nice nails, a sense of style on the photo’s fringe.

She might have been Reid’s mum, a sister, his girlfriend. Someone who was alongside him, and proud of him. Someone close enough to reach out and touch him.

There were many hands that reached out to help Reid during his life, while others sought to drag him down.

In the end, he slipped from all of them, slipped beyond anyone’s grasp, and made his way to the centre of Auckland early on Thursday, intent on wreaking revenge and havoc.

Just after seven on weekdays, the bottom of Auckland’s Queen St is a criss-cross of commuters, clutching coffees, shouldering backpacks. Headphones, handbags, last night’s leftovers for lunch.

Along the waterfront, where Queen St runs out, and Quay St parallels the harbour edge, workers in the many construction zones were already on the job on Thursday, fitting out stark towers with offices and accommodation.

On the corner, at 1 Queen St, was the freshly dubbed Deloitte building, a 21-storey block with some of the most spectacular views of Auckland.

One Queen St: if there was a more marquee address in the city, it would be hard to find.

Its upper floors were intimidating dark glass; it dwarfed the historic ferry terminal building across the road; and within months, it would house not just accounting giant Deloitte, but top legal firm Bell Gully, a five-star Intercontinental Hotel, and a rooftop bar.

Premiere and plush, the almost-$300 million refurbishment was nearing completion.

Reid had been working on the site, one of well over 100 contractors from various firms, who arrived each day shortly after dawn.

But at 7.20am on Thursday, workers were stunned to see him in the building carrying a shotgun.

Then he started shooting.

The first frantic calls to 111 came in at 7.22am, with reports of people wounded on the third floor.

In the 12 minutes before police arrived, Reid made his way further up the building.

Panicked workers set off the fire alarm and fled.

Some made it out of the building onto Quay St.

Some headed upstairs looking to evade the shooter.

Some simply hid and hoped.

Police entered the building at 7.34am, with Armed Offenders Squad members arriving four minutes later, and making their way up the floors.

On the rooftop, officers shouted at workers to take cover.

Wearing orange high-vis vests, the contractors sheltered behind stacks of timber and pallets of building supplies.

Other workers from lower floors emerged onto the roof, and were quickly corralled into a corner, as far from the danger below as they could find.

Across Queen St, an onlooker filmed the evolving scene.

His camera tracked a group of workers and police escaping the area.

And then came the sound that made everything real.

BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG.”

Then more.

“BANG, BANG.”

“Something’s going down, it’s pretty major. There’s gunshots,” he exclaimed, as he panned across the highrises out his window, totems of commercial hubris – AON, HSBC, and the Deloitte building in front of him.

“It’s all on – bloody hell.”

Reid was 24, and living in South Auckland.

He told a probation officer his background had been troubled: there was domestic violence and physical abuse as a child; family instability and hardship; and he’d run away from home because of this.

He described a disrupted education, limited employment, and being exposed to drugs, alcohol, and gang life from an early age.

By 2021, Reid had been convicted of common assault and placed on supervision.

Angela Huntley, manager of the Albany Oak Motel, got to know Reid when he lived there, by himself, in late 2021 under MSD’s emergency housing programme.

She took a shine to him, and he never caused any problems during the several months he stayed there.

“He was quite a cool person, he called me aunty. He was actually a really nice guy, I’m quite shocked.

“He kept his room clean, he was a kind and happy person. He was very respectful of me.

“What the hell made him snap?

“He did have a problem with drinking, but it didn’t cause any problems here.”

Huntley said Reid’s mother would visit occasionally.

“She was a bit worried about him, she would call to check up on him.”

Huntley believed the system had failed Reid.

“He tried to get help, but there was not enough. He probably needed extra help in the mental health [area].

“Everyone needs help, being homeless. We did try and make him comfortable here.”

Huntley said Reid didn’t work during his time at the motel.

“He moved out of here and ended up staying at a church. I hear he was doing quite well.

“He must have snapped, he’d had a hard life.

“Obviously his life didn’t turn out the way he wanted it to – he tried.”

In September 2021, after drinking heavily, Reid attacked a friend at the time.

He pushed her off a chair into a wall and dressing table; threw an object that struck her in the head; then kicked her in the stomach so hard she flew backwards onto a bed.

Then he stood over her, grabbed her throat with both hands, and strangled her for 10 seconds so she couldn’t breathe, then continued to punch and slap her in the face.

When Reid eventually stopped, he warned his victim, “You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

He then attacked her with a pair of scissors, and swung a wine bottle at her, but missed.

The woman escaped and called the police, but when she returned to her room, Reid had attempted to set fire to it.

Reid’s victim suffered a broken bone in her neck, a black and swollen eye, bruising to her face, extensive abrasions, and was hospitalised. She suffered ongoing psychological harm.

When police questioned Reid, he claimed the injuries were the result of consensual rough sex.

At his sentencing in March this year, Judge Steve Bonnar said reports of Reid’s upbringing made “depressingly familiar reading”.

“You are one of a large number of young men who come before this court with those sort of background circumstances.”

Even though he’d previously undergone anger management treatment, Judge Bonnar accepted a probation report that Reid remained a high risk of causing harm to others.

“This is because of the violent nature of the present offending.”

Though the starting point for his offences was three years, Reid was given credit for his guilty plea, and his background.

Reid’s victim said she thought he suffered from a “generational anger”, forgave him, and said she didn’t want him to go to jail.

Judge Bonnar agreed, saying Reid needed help to address his issues, and home detention was an appropriate sentence.

“I do not want to send a young man like you, with a limited history, to prison. I think that could be counterproductive and actually set you down the wrong path.”

Taking into account Reid had already served several months in custody, he sentenced him to five months’ home detention, with conditions including not using any alcohol or drugs, and completing non-violence, and alcohol and drug programmes.

“But you need to realise, Mr Reid,” Judge Bonnar warned him, “you need to turn your life around from here, because if you commit further offences of violence in the future, things are just going to get worse for you, and you could well end up going to jail.”

Then, with a mix of optimism and trust, Judge Bonnar told Reid he was being given an opportunity, and said he hoped he wouldn’t see him back before the court again.

And Reid had been doing what was required.

He’d completed an alcohol and drug programme.

He’d been clear of drugs and booze when tested twice since March.

He was doing a non-violence course.

He was checking in regularly with his probation officer, including on Wednesday.

And he’d got a job – working for a subcontractor at the Deloitte building in Queen St.

Even though his home detention meant he had an electronic monitoring bracelet, Reid had an exemption to leave his address and travel to the city for work.

But something had gone wrong, some sleight, some disagreement or deception, some perceived injustice. (It’s understood the gunman’s motive was to do with his employment at the site.)

And on Thursday, with nobody foreseeing it, Reid returned to his work site with a pump-action shotgun, despite not having a firearms licence or evidently owning a gun.

Workers recounted seeing Reid making his way up the stairs, not shooting randomly, but seemingly searching for specific people.

When word spread there was a gunman in the building, some ran down the stairs, heading for the street, only to meet colleagues screaming at them to turn around and go back up.

It seems Reid shot several people, including a police officer just minutes after police stormed the building, before barricading himself in a lift shaft on the upper floors.

While he waited, he could hear sirens echoing from the surrounding streets as more emergency services arrived.

Not far from the scene, however, there was distinct nonchalance from many, idling by on their way to work, unaware or uninterested, even as a line of black-clad AOS officers jogged by.

But around 8am, bystanders even blocks away heard the volley of quickfire shots that shocked them into realising the seriousness of what was playing out.

In an exchange of gunfire, Reid shot one officer, critically wounding them.

Shortly afterwards, Reid was found dead.

Two others lay dead, and 10 had been injured during the brief siege.

Workers continued to be hustled out of the building by police with weapons slung at 45 degrees across their chests.

The contractors wore hard hats and hard faces, finding it hard to comprehend what they’d just been through.

Friends and worried family members waited for them beyond the police cordon, plastic tape which flicked in the wind, the same wind that nipped at nearby flags advertising the FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Auckland mayor Wayne Brown began giving interviews, sounding as shocked as everyone.

Knowing the eyes of the world were on Auckland with the World Cup’s opening that night, there was a whiff of embarrassment and image protection as Brown stammered to RNZ’s Kathryn Ryan: “What we’re going to have to do is spend a long time explaining that this is actually a very rare event, a totally unheard of event.”

When Prime Minister Chris Hipkins fronted a press conference an hour later, he looked tired, deflated, emotional.

But he summed up everyone’s immediate feelings: This was “a very grim morning for us.”

By early afternoon, however, many had begun to move on, grief and horror dissipating a little with each update.

At 2pm, a major news website was headlined by a ticker promoting a story on why cheese and milk prices remain high.

Amid death and national dismay, bread and butter issues still ruled, it seemed.

Many people had tried to help Matu Reid.

From those running the courses for young people at risk of driving offending; to the Turn Your Life Around youth development trust which aims to help at-risk youths on a path to crime; to Angela Huntley at Reid’s emergency accommodation; to the boss who gave him a job; to the counsellors who ran drug and alcohol courses; the friend who knew he needed help, not jail; to the judge who wanted to give him a chance to change.

All those hands were extended.

It’s hard to know if Reid tried to grab them, or if the weight of his problems and upbringing just dragged him down too far.

Whatever the answer, wherever the truth, what really hurts is that he pulled so many others down with him, when he fell.