‘Come here’: How Christchurch mosque massacre hero chased off gunman

As the gunman targeted a second mosque, one man ran outside to confront him. This is how he managed to chase the heavily armed killer away.

When the gunman advanced toward the mosque, killing those in his path, Abdul Aziz didn’t hide.

Instead, he picked up the first thing he could find, a credit card machine, and ran outside screaming: “Come here!”

Mr Aziz, 48, is being hailed as a hero for preventing more deaths during Friday prayers at the Linwood mosque in Christchurch after leading the gunman into a cat-and-mouse chase before scaring him into speeding away in his car.

But Mr Aziz, whose four sons and dozens of others remained in the mosque while he faced off with the gunman, said he thinks it’s what anyone would have done.

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Abdul Aziz. Picture: AP/Vincent Thian

The gunman killed 50 people after attacking two mosques in the deadliest mass shooting in New Zealand’s modern history.

Most of those victims were killed at his first target, the Al Noor mosque. The shooter then drove about 5km across town to the Linwood mosque, where he killed seven more people — but also encountered Mr Aziz.

Latef Alabi, the mosque’s acting imam, said the death toll would have been far higher at the Linwood mosque if it weren’t for Aziz.

Mr Alabi said he heard a voice outside the mosque at about 1:55pm, stopped the prayer he was leading, and peeked out the window.

He saw a man in black military-style gear and a helmet holding a large gun, and assumed it was a police officer. Then he saw two bodies, and heard the gunman yelling obscenities.

“I realised this is something else. This is a killer,” he said.

He yelled at the congregation of more than 80 worshippers to get down.

They hesitated. A shot rang out, a window shattered and a body fell, and people started to realise the danger was real.

“Then this brother came over. He went after him, and he managed to overpower him, and that’s how we were saved,” Mr Alabi said, referring to Mr Aziz.

“Otherwise, if he managed to come into the mosque, then we would all probably be gone.”

A makeshift memorial near the Linwood Mosque in Christchurch. Picture: AAP/Mick Tsikas

Mr Aziz said as he ran outside screaming. He was hoping to distract the attacker.

He said the gunman ran back to his car to get another gun, and Aziz hurled the credit card machine at him.

He said he could hear his two youngest sons, aged 11 and 5, urging him to come back inside.

The gunman returned, firing. Aziz said he ran, weaving through cars parked in the driveway, which prevented the gunman from getting a clean shot at him.

Then Mr Aziz spotted a gun the gunman had abandoned and picked it up, pointed it and squeezed the trigger.

It was empty.

He said the gunman ran back to the car for a second time, likely to grab yet another weapon.

“He gets into his car and I just got the gun and threw it on his window like an arrow and blasted his window,” he said.

The windshield shattered.

“That’s why he got scared,” Mr Aziz said.

He said the gunman was cursing at him, yelling that he was going to kill them all. But he drove away, and Mr Aziz said he chased the car down the street to a red light, before it made a U-turn and sped away.

Online videos indicate police officers managed to force the car from the road and drag out the suspect soon after.

Brenton Tarrant in court. Picture: Mark Mitchell-Pool/Getty Images

Mr Aziz was originally from Kabul in Afghanistan. He said he left as a refugee when he was a boy and lived in Australia for more than 25 years before moving to New Zealand a couple of years ago.

“I’ve been to a lot of countries and this is one of the beautiful ones,” he said.

And, he always thought, a peaceful one as well.

Mr Aziz said he didn’t feel fear or much of anything when facing the gunman. It was like he was on autopilot. And he believes that God, that Allah, didn’t think it was his time to die.

The death toll from Friday’s attack has risen to 50, and 36 injured people remain in hospital, with 11 in a critical condition. A four-year-old girl is among those fighting for her life in Auckland’s Starship children’s hospital.