Kate Hawkesby: We can't put our heads in the sand and pretend this violence isn't happening

I got sent a video yesterday, which I assume is doing the rounds, of the Point England shooting in Auckland on the weekend.

2.30pm on a Saturday afternoon in a suburban neighbourhood in Auckland. That makes three shootings in a week by the way for our country, three separate gunmen on the loose – still at large – and three victims dead.

It seems unfathomable that this is the state of our country right now. The video of the Point England one shows a scene of chaos; people running around, as shots volley out across the reserve.

It’s incredulous to watch and think this is just a family suburb of Auckland. How did we end up here?

The answer to that is lengthy, but the consequences are people left terrified in their own communities.

The Herald yesterday reported a “traumatised mother who’d spoken of her horror after her two young children witnessed the fatal daylight gang shootout from their living room window.

She told the Herald her children, aged 6 and 8, were watching television when gunshots rang out. “They saw two men firing guns at each other right outside our house,” she said. ‘Two people were shot, with one later dying in hospital.

Police described it as “reckless violence” in community spaces and “deplorable” to authorities and the public,’ it was reported.

This woman's been left traumatised and on edge since the incident.’ She said she won’t let her kids play in the reserve now like they used to as she ‘feels insecure’, she said.

We know of a grandmother in the area who’s scared to leave her house now.

These people are lucky they weren’t hurt, but with that unfolding outside your window and the killer still at large, you can see how locals would be terrified.

Likewise downtown Auckland in the CBD (the scene of two shootings this month), has become a scary place to be after dark.

I know of several people who now have to rethink their schedules to account for random violence and nut jobs accosting them.

They either hybrid work some days from home, change hours to enable them to leave town before dark, or have changed their mode of transport home for safety reasons.

Swapping from the bus to an Uber, some book taxis rather than risk waiting for an Uber on the street.

Good decent hard working people, changing their routines and schedules, just to try and stay safe.

They shouldn't have to, but they’re being proactive, they feel forced to by the lack of patrols downtown, the lack of security, the lack of a Police presence.

That’s how dangerous downtown Auckland’s become. It’s a travesty.

There're plenty of people who don’t like hearing this stuff, but why shouldn’t we report the facts? When the streets and parks of our communities and our CBD’s are so awash with crime and violence?

We should be appalled; we can’t just put our heads in the sand and pretend it’s not happening.

We don’t fix it or move forward by denying it. We have to confront the stark reality that this country is not what it was, the streets do not feel safe, random people with guns are shooting them and not being arrested because they’ve scarpered.

And then we get told to ‘keep a look out’ for dangerous criminals on the loose. Is anyone feeling safer yet?

 I don’t think so.

Kate Hawkesby is a political broadcaster on Newstalk ZB - her articles can be seen HERE.