High profile Mongrel Mob member captured
A high profile Mongrel Mob member on the run from police who has links to Hawke's Bay has been captured in New Plymouth.
Mana Tangitutu, 27, who has the words "East Coast mongrel forever" and three large M's tattooed on his face, sparked an extensive man hunt when he escaped police custody in Whakatane last week after being handed a four month prison sentence for assault.
This morning Whakatane Police and New Plymouth Armed Offenders Squad coordinated a search warrant at a house in New Plymouth where Tangitutu was arrested without incident.
He will appear in New Plymouth District Court today charged with escaping custody.
The Hawke's Bay Today archives revealed Tangitutu's trail of offending as an 18-year-old in Hastings.
In 2003, he was sentenced in the Hawke's Bay courts for his part in an unprovoked attack on a tourist, and the same year told a court how he passed a knife to a man on trial for a fatal stabbing.
At the time of the unprovoked assault, Judge Dale Clarkson called Tangitutu's actions "a disgraceful piece of violence". He was one of three men who punched and kicked a Malaysian tourist in a daylight attack.
Months later he told the Napier High Court how he gave a knife to the man on trial for fatally stabbing 18-year-old Gavin Arthur outside a Hastings party.
