After a careful house-to-house search the next day, police officers led by the Anti-Terrorist Squad (now known as the Special Tactics Group) located Gray, and shot and injured him as he came out of a house firing from the hip.

He quickly found Chiquita and shot her in the chest and arm with a Squires and Bingham Model 16 .22-calibre semi-automatic sporting rifle, with one of the bullets lodging in her abdomen.

Bryson, realising that Rewa and Jasmine were still in the Holden house, drove her van there with Chiquita in an attempt to save the girls.

Gray started shooting indiscriminately, targeting a utility vehicle full of locals who had seen the Holden house burning and stopped to help.

He first shot Vanessa Percy several times in the back as she ran down the street in terror; she died a few hours later at the scene.

[9] Ross Percy, the children's father, who had been driving them home after a day fishing when they saw the fire, was fatally shot in the head.

Gray then entered the home of Tim Jamieson, killing him and another elderly local, former Green Island mayor Vic Crimp.

Gray shot at both of them, wounding Cole who was in a phone booth calling the police and forcing Mrs. Dickson to dive for cover.

Mrs. Dickson, who had recently had a hip replacement and was unable to walk without assistance, pulled herself along on her stomach using her arms and feet in a ditch to get inside and called 1-1-1 (the emergency telephone number).

Guthrie enlisted the help of Constable Russell Anderson, who had arrived a short time earlier with the fire service.

Detective Paul Alan Knox and two constables arrived, starting the first step of the "cordon, contain, appeal" standard police strategy for armed offenders.

[10] Minutes later the Dunedin branch of the AOS began to arrive and sealed off the township with a roadblock about 250 metres along the only road out of Aramoana, securing it with an armoured car.

The situation was considered dangerous as Gray had a scoped rifle, making him potentially accurate at long range.

Also on the flight were Minister of Police John Banks, the Commissioner, and Julie Holden, who described Aramoana to the ATS.

A bus took the ATS to Port Chalmers, which was choked with vehicles, where residents from Aramoana briefed the group about the township and Gray.

The Iroquois crew flew for over eight hours in support of the operation during the day, including positioning police snipers in the surrounding hills.

After the initial reconnaissance flight, the ATS moved out as two squads and met up with the Timaru AOS, who were holding positions.

The group discovered Sergeant Guthrie's revolver in a garden, and a woman who had been hiding under a table for more than twenty hours.

[4] As soon as the shooting erupted, the Air Force Iroquois took up position overhead to help ensure Gray could not escape into nearby bushes in the fading light of the approaching second night.

[27] His sister said the death of their mother deeply affected David, and prompted him to move from Port Chalmers to the Gray family holiday home in Aramoana.

[22][25] In January 1990, he threatened an assistant of the bookshop with what appeared to be a shotgun in a cardboard box, and Brosnan served him with a trespass notice in February.

"[31] Three days after the incident, Gray's house at 27 Muri Street in Aramoana was deliberately set on fire and burnt to the ground.

After the theft began circulating on the news and social media, it was found the following year in a cupboard in the museum where it had been stored and poorly catalogued.

[38][39] In February 2018, relatives sold the George Cross awarded to Sergeant Stewart Guthrie to Lord Ashcroft.

[46] There are chapters devoted to the shootings in Gordon Johnston's history of the settlement, Journey to Aramoana – His Story,[47] and Confessions from the Front Line by STG leader Murray Forbes.

The production faced opposition from some citizens in Aramoana, which resulted in the majority of the movie having to be filmed in another nearby township.

Dunedin band the Chills more directly address the Aramoana incident in the song "Strange Case" from the 1992 album Soft Bomb.

Members of the newly formed Wellington band Goatrider were inspired to write the song "David Gray", which subsequently appeared on their 1992 limited edition cassette release FTS.