‘Give me your f***** keys’

Nigel Baker was working alone at his Tasman Aluminium office when a gun wielding man smashed the front door and pulled a gun on him demanding keys to a nearby Holden.

'He pointed the gun at me and said ‘give me the f***** keys', says the Truman Lane business manager today.

The drama unfolded about 9.30pm when an alleged gunman lost control of a car at Baypark roundabout after leading police on a high-speed chase through the streets of Tauranga.

Police say according to witness statements the fleeing man had attempted to take vehicles from three members of the public at gunpoint by the time he ran to Tasman Aluminium.

'There was a police car just out here on Truman Road,” says Nigel.

'It was stopping traffic coming down from the arena. I saw a guy walking down the road from the roundabout. He tried the side door to get in here, then he broke the glass.

'He wouldn't have seen me. All the lights were off and I was standing in the showroom. I think he was looking for the keys to my car, parked in front.”

Nigel was standing in darkness on the showroom floor when the gunman entered with 'some sort of rifle, perhaps cut down”.

Illuminated only by the streets outside, Nigel didn't get a good look at the man's face.

He quickly sorted through the keys and found the car key in a bunch. The whole confrontation was over in two, three minutes, tops, says Nigel.

'It wasn't too good,” says Nigel.

'And off he went. He went one way and I went the other.”

His Holden HS V6 had four brand new tyres, tyres that were almost immediately shredded when the gunman drove across road spikes while escaping Truman Lane.

Grabbing his cellphone from his desk, Nigel called 111 before heading for the rear of the building.

'While I was on the phone to the operator police came in the front,” says Nigel. 'I yelled that I was in the back, and they asked me to approach them. They didn't know who I was, there were no lights.”

When it was clear Nigel wasn't the gunman, he was taken to the police station where he was interviewed by detectives until 2.30am.

He was back at work this morning, where a police forensics team is going over the Tasman Aluminium office and showroom.

A 32-year-old Auckland man has been arrested and is due in court this morning.

Read more about the high-speed chase here.

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1 comment

Reg M

Posted on 31-07-2014 14:45 | By RegM

Never a dull moment at Tasman EH! Nigel


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