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Source: ONE News -
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Actor and scriptwriter Rob Mokaraka decided to die at the hands of the police because of the stress of a custody battle, friends say.
Mokaraka, 36, is in Auckland City Hospital six days after being shot in the stomach after allegedly threatening police with what they believed was a firearm.
An officer opened fire after a 111 call had warned police of an armed man. The call - actually made by Mokaraka - was followed by a confrontation in a Pt Chevalier street when the actor advanced on officers carrying a meat cleaver and what appeared to be a gun wrapped in a towel.
Sources told the Herald on Sunday Mokoraka's actions were as a result of stress caused by a dispute with former partner Kate Parker over custody of their daughter.
Friend and mentor Pita Turei could not confirm the custody dispute but said Mokaraka's decision to trick the police into shooting him were "the actions of a normal Maori man in our times".
"I have bore witness to the way we as Maori men respond to pressure and stress. It is usually violent and tragic."
Turei said Mokaraka's apparent desire to commit suicide by having police shoot him needed to be discussed, considering the high rate of violent suicide among Maori men.
"We have a number of suicide pacts and copy cat suicides. If there is one suicide others will follow. So in a way Rob has lifted the bar here - he's invented a new form of suicide by police firing squad.
"Rob is a very valuable person because he has survived and he is a person who can talk, articulate and write..."
Mokaraka has been charged in a special bedside court hearing with one count of possession of an offensive weapon and another of assault with a weapon and is due to appear in Auckland District Court on August 19.
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