{"id":268542,"date":"2026-02-05T06:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T06:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/268542\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T06:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T06:50:07","slug":"gang-member-hone-neal-who-was-shot-by-police-appears-in-court-with-co-accused","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/268542\/","title":{"rendered":"Gang member Hone Neal, who was shot by police, appears in court with co-accused"},"content":{"rendered":"

Neal, who was wearing an orange tracksuit today and didn\u2019t appear to have any visible injuries, faces an additional charge of using a firearm against law enforcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Through his counsel, Gerard Walsh, he entered not guilty pleas to all charges.<\/p>\n

Neal didn\u2019t seek bail and was remanded in custody by Community Magistrate Ngaire Mascelle to reappear in court in April for a case review hearing.<\/p>\n

Waitere was remanded in custody without plea to reappear next week for a bail hearing.<\/p>\n

\u2018Aggravated burglary of Hamilton home\u2019<\/p>\n

The pair\u2019s charges are understood to stem from an aggravated burglary at a Hamilton home during the early hours of January 29.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Neal, Waitere, and several others allegedly entered the home, the occupants also got home. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s alleged the occupants were assaulted and had possessions taken from them before the group left.<\/p>\n

They then went to a second property to meet another person, who was also allegedly attacked.<\/p>\n

The firearm charge stemmed from Wednesday, when Neal was allegedly spotted by police in his Subaru at the Ulster St superette.<\/p>\n

\"AA man was taken to hospital after he was shot outside the Ulster St superette in the Hamilton suburb of Whitiora. Photo \/ Facebook<\/p>\n

Neal is alleged to have bought some items from the store and got back into his car before a police patrol car blocked it in.<\/p>\n

He allegedly reversed his car as two police officers approached and saw Neal pointing a firearm at them.<\/p>\n

They retreated, and at some point officers fired a shot. <\/p>\n

Neal is understood to have suffered a minor injury to his nose.<\/p>\n

Soon after, both Neal and Waitere were arrested.<\/p>\n

\u2018Referred to the IPCA\u2019<\/p>\n

Acting Waikato district commander Inspector Will Loughrin said he was proud of how his officers handled the situation.<\/p>\n

Loughrin earlier confirmed a critical investigation had begun, with the shooting also to be referred to the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA), as was standard procedure.<\/p>\n

A nearby resident also heard gunfire, and police told him to stay home, while others could be seen being escorted by police to their houses.<\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neal, who was wearing an orange tracksuit today and didn\u2019t appear to have any visible injuries, faces an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16425,3595,152555,1349,1328,15977,78,1329,59736,111,43,139,69,675,10117,6736,1299,102],"class_list":["post-268542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-appears","tag-by","tag-coaccused","tag-court","tag-gang","tag-hone","tag-in","tag-member","tag-neal","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-police","tag-shot","tag-was","tag-who","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}