A man driving past the shooting that left Constable Matthew Hunt dead, has described to the court how he saw a "police officer fall to the ground".
It is the third day of the trial for 25-year-old Eli Epiha, who’s admitted to killing Hunt, but denies attempting to murder his partner, Constable David Goldfinch, who was seriously injured in the incident.
The 12-person jury at the High Court in Auckland is tasked with determining if he’s guilty of that.
They must also decide if 31-year-old Natalie Bracken was an accessory after the fact of murder.
A resident of Massey, West Auckland, today described to the court how he was driving to the fruit store with his partner when they came across the incident.
"I stopped, looked left and right, and that’s when I saw the shooting happen", the jury heard.
The court heard from the witness how he saw a "police officer drop" and "fall backwards to the ground".
When asked by Crown Prosecutor Alysha Mcclintock, "What was the first you noticed?", he said, "a guy with a gun".
He then said, "I saw what happened".
He said the officer was trying to run, or get cover.
"All I saw was him run and then fall", he told the court, "I saw the police officer drop ... I saw him fall backwards".
The man apologised to the court as he shared his recollection of the incident, stating he was "struggling".
He recounted how the man with the gun was "focusing down the barrel".
He told the court he only stopped for a matter of seconds, before he "sped off" and "flagged down some unmarked police".
A jury at the High Court in Auckland played audio of shots being fired by Eli Epiha as he murdered Constable Matthew Hunt.
The incident, on June 19 last year, began when Epiha fled Police, driving past them at speed.
His dangerous driving caused him to crash, injuring a member of the public and immobilising his own car.
The jury is today hearing from several members of the public, living in the area, who witnessed what happened next.
One man, who watched the incident unfold from his driveway, told the court he saw "a male jump out of the car with a gun ... saw a cop car pull up seconds later".
He described how he saw a fat, long-haired man with his "hand was on the trigger, in the shooting position, ready to shoot".
After hearing a series of shots, he explained his focus shifted to his own safety, as he quickly ran inside.
"We locked the doors and closed all the curtains", and said as they did that, he heard more gunshots.
"My mum was on the phone talking to police".
He found another vantage point inside, from where he watched the armed man move "calmly" in a "casual walk" towards his escape car.
He said there was no panic or rush, it was if he was "walking around in a mall ... window shopping".
As the man walked, the gun was still across his chest, the witness told the court.
Another local said he was working in his home when he heard the car accident that day.
When he stood up to look out his window at what was happening, he said, "I saw the gun person, it looked like he was about to shoot the police officer".
He described to the court how he then saw the officer duck to the ground, sheltering beside a car, as the armed man "raised up the object, he went over the car roof".
At that point, he said, "I went to my desk, to get my phone, wanting to take a photo".
"When I came back, [an officer] was already on the ground."
"When I was first videoing, he was moving, then I did not see later on he was moving", the man said.
The video the resident took was played as evidence yesterday .
The man’s wife also gave evidence, saying she told him to video the incident.
She said, "I heard bangs. I asked him what was going on. He said they’re shooting at the cops".
She stood on her bed to see what was going on, and told the court, "I saw sparks. It looks like gunshots being fired".
She recalled how she soon stepped away from the window, out of fear, and said she while she couldn’t remember just how many gunshots she heard, "there were quite a lot".
Epiha fired 14 shots that day, 10 towards Constable Goldfinch, who was left seriously injured after being hit four times.
Constable Hunt was fatally struck by four bullets.
A man who lives on Reynella Drive, Marcus Tiatia, told the court he was outside during the shooting and described seeing one of the officers running from the gunman.
He said they were on opposite sides of a vehicle and that the armed man "held the gun above his head, he was pointing over the car".
"[The officer] was just running around saying 'stop it!'", he said.
He recalled seeing the officer, now known to be Constable Goldfinch, run off behind his home.
He said while the Constable didn't say anything, he "just looked into his eyes and he looked scared".
Tiatia's girlfriend, Eyisha Warren-Hetherington, told the court Bracken had been living at their house at the time of the incident.
Tiatia referred to her as "Nat" while giving evidence, and said she'd been dating his brother and was at his address on Reynella Drive the night before the shooting.
He told the court that at one point during the incident Bracken was standing with Warren-Hetherington and him on their driveway.
It was their car Bracken and Epiha were filmed driving away in.
Neither Tiatia or Warren-Hetherington were clear on how the defendants got their keys.
Tiatia was asked, "Did you see her run into your house?", he said yes, after him.
"She asked if I had my keys..." he said, "I didn’t respond".
Warren-Hetherington claimed Epiha pointed the gun at them.
“He pointed the gun at us and he asked us for to take them away.”
"How did they get the keys?", she was asked.
"She got them..." she said, "from us".
Another witness recalled seeing a woman, Bracken, "waving her arms around, trying to get [the gunman’s] attention to follow her".
Another saying he saw her with a key, and that the pair then "got in the car and drove away".
The trial is expected to last up to three weeks.
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