Men appear in court on firearm charges relating to tavern incident
Thursday, 11 February 2021
A man has been remanded in custody and is facing charges of presenting a shotgun in an Invercargill tavern during the weekend.
Mangu Tamatea, 22, of Palmerston North, appeared in the Invercargill District Court on Thursday, charged with possessing a shotgun, presenting it at a man and being armed with a gun entering the tavern with the intent to commit an imprisonable offence.
Tamatea has multiple Black Power tattoos on his face.
Police were called to an incident at the Eastern Suburbs Tavern, also known as the Glengarry Tavern, on Saturday about 10.20pm.
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Judge Russell Walker remanded Tamatea in custody to reappear on March 2, but gave leave to apply for bail.
Pleas to the charges were not entered.
Three other men also appeared in court in relation to the incident.
Tre Moerua-Awhitu, 21, of Christchurch, appeared on a charge of possessing eight rounds of .22 ammunition and a charge of presenting a shotgun at a man.
Moerua-Awhitu was remanded on bail and is expected to reappear in court via video link from Christchurch on March 2.
A condition of Moerua-Awhitu’s bail was to not associate with any staff of the Glengarry Tavern, gang members, witnesses, victims, his co-defendant or to enter Southland except for to appear in court.
Two other men, who had been held in custody since Sunday, had all charges related to the incident withdrawn by police without prejudiceand were released.
On Monday, Stuff reported that patrons and staff of the tavern were left shaken after an altercation broke out between rival gangs.
The people involved left the scene before police arrived but the Armed Offenders Squad was called to execute a search warrant at a Lorn St house at 6pm on Sunday.