A former soldier says he tried to warn police about the rifle club the alleged Christchurch mosque terrorist trained at.



In late 2017, around the same time Brenton Tarrant was getting his firearms license, Pete Breidahl visited the Bruce Rifle Club on several occasions. He left with growing fears the club was the "perfect breeding ground" for mass shooting.

"The ethos within the club concerned me. It was like being at a 1980s NRA meeting. It was the perfect breeding place for this kind of thing," he told Newshub.

"Their attitude towards firearms was pretty scary, especially with the E category ones."

Vice-president of the Bruce Rifle Club, Scott Williams, says Tarrant had been a member of the Milton club since 2018 and seemed like "a normal person".

"[He] never gave anyone reason to suspect he would carry out an attack like he has," he told Newshub.

Tarrant moved to Dunedin in 2017 - "to plan and train" for an attack - and Breidahl believes that at the Bruce Rifle Club he found the perfect place to fit in.

"The first thing that struck me about the Bruce Rifle Club was the fact that they wore camo on the range - any normal range on the North Island camo is a big no no," he told Newshub.

"It's things like if you were at a pistol club and someone turned up wearing, let's say, a black trenchcoat and black boots and black camo pants. You'd be like 'oh, ok, that doesn't look right'."

Warning: Video contains language that might offend some viewers

