[1] Largely a stand-over prison gang, the Fourth Reich garnered a reputation for extreme violence, several members having been handed down life sentences.
[3][5] According to researchers, the release of Romper Stomper in 1992 was a shot in the arm for skinhead gangs and white supremacist ideology.
Practitioners throughout the New Zealand national security sector perceived that the Fourth Reich presented a credible terrorist threat to the country during the early 2000s.
Fourth Reich, on the other hand, was perceived not only to be both more dangerous and racist than these other right wing extremist groups, but "considerably more ideologically driven".
[2] Whether they posed a real terrorist threat or not, Fourth Reich members were some of the most violent and dangerous criminals local police had ever come across.
At the height of the crackdown on the gang in 1998, Sergeant Greg Sparrow was forced to relocate his wife and children for two weeks after receiving a credible threat to his life.
[6] Sociologist Jarrod Gilbert argues, given that Fourth Reich member Neihana Foster was biracially Maori (indigenous New Zealander) and Pākehā, and he and fellow gang member Aaron Howie murdered Maori rugby player Hemi Hutley because of his race, that this reflects the lack of ideological and philosophical rigors of the group.
[4] In a similar vein, Addison argues that most skinhead gangs in New Zealand lack a "coherent belief system or philosophy", citing research which suggests that members of New Zealand skinhead gangs were not familiar with white supremacist ideology, instead primarily motivated by a cocktail of alienation and hate.
This stands in stark contrast to skinheadism in the United States, where members tend to be well-adjusted, employed and socially integrated.
The Act was characterised by then Solicitor General David Collins as "virtually unworkable" and "almost impossible to apply in a coherent manner" in 2007 and remained unchanged in 2019 after the Christchurch mosque shootings.
[11] By the late 1990s, members of the Fourth Reich had procured an infamous reputation as some of the most ruthless murderers on the South Island.
[5] During their trial in 1997, Aaron Howie and Neihana Foster both received life sentences, after being found to have murdered Maori rugby player Hemi Hutley, then 23 years old.
[3] It was alleged at trial that at a party in October 1999, James 'Janis' Bamborough, 54 at the time, hugged Leighton Wilding and made lewd comments about his sister's breasts.
According to one witness, Wilding described how powerful he felt as he squeezed the life from Bamborough's and his body turned lame, while a former girlfriend claimed that McKenzie joked that he had "killed a faggot".
As Mr Kim did so, Flewellen strangled him while McKenzie held his arms and "stared into his eyes until he stopped struggling".
[3] Finally, in 2011, Malcolm George Chaston was handed a life sentence for the murder of Vanessa Pickering who was stabbed to death in 2010.
Prior to his trial in 2011, Chaston had swastika tattoos removed from his face and neck, and changed his name to Maniapoto Walker.