A 27-year-old man died during a shooting-related shooting in Whanganui and the offenders are still at large.

The police have started a murder investigation and Detective Ross McKay said they believed more than one person had performed the shooting and left in a car.

A forensic team and researchers tried to summarize the details of how the shooting happened, including where it happened on the site, who was present and what type of weapons were used.

"Full forensic investigations will continue tonight and until tomorrow."

The mother of the husband's partner said the man protected children and other guests in his house when members of a rival gang appeared on Tuesday around 9:40 am.

The woman's daughter had a relationship with the man who was shot deadly. The man was a Mongrel Mob member and he and the wife's daughter were at home with guests, including children, when members of another gang arrived at the house.

"He told them to go in the back and hide and he saved them, he protected them, I love that boy – he protected them and then he went out and they shot him down," said the woman.

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Initially, the police would only say that they "responded to a firearms incident", but just before fourteen they confirmed that they had started a murder investigation and that officers from outside Whanganui were engaged to help.

"The offenders remain excellent, but we believe the people involved were known and known to the police," McKay said.

"As the investigations are underway and in response to this incident, the Whanganui community will notice an increased presence of the police, and there is no direct cause for concern for the general public."

The police said it was not a random attack on Tuesday afternoon.

"We believe that the parties involved have ties or associations with gangs, but we are still in the initial stages of the investigation and can not comment on this at this stage," McKay said.

Extra officers have been brought in from Manawatū and Taranaki.

"We want the Whanganui community to feel comfortable that there is a strong police presence in the area [and police are] work hard to investigate this crime. "

The wife's daughter had recently introduced her family to her partner.

"He was just family and my moko loved him, he was visiting her home, he had fallen in love, but [this area’s] always been Black Power. They got a new house and they would be gone in a week, "said the woman.

The tensions in the area had been escalating for several months, with a new youth gang that increases the friction between old rivals the Black Power and the Mongrel Mob, she said.

Another woman who drove around the scene around 9.50 am, and who also asked not to be mentioned, said she saw what looked like a body covered with a pink sheet.

A man on the spot said he heard three shots.

In the front garden of a cream-colored house on Puriri St, under a pohutukawa tree, a blue tent and a black tarpaulin have been put down.

A group of about 20 family and friends chatted together, cuddling and comforting at the cordon mid-afternoon. About 10 patched Mongrel Mob members also stood for the vigil.

Shan Albert, a cousin of the man who died, said that the man came from a close family. He was 27 and had sons who were 7 and 3.

"Yes, he was a gang member, but that was only one side of him.

"It was first family, he was a great father and he cared for his family and friends and the mother of his children," said Albert.

"Everyone knew who he was, but he put up a front, behind that front he was the softest, friendliest person, you could easily access him anywhere."

On Tuesday afternoon, members of the Māori Fellowship Church invited people on the corner outside the cordon to wait for the church hall, toilets and kitchen to be used.

At Kura o Kokohuia on Matipo St, who encounters Puriri St, posted a message on the Facebook page that the school was closed Tuesday morning.

"This is to inform you that your children are safe and warm," wrote Kura Head Tuhi Smith.

The school closed early for the day.

Virginia Hina took a video of the police traffic after she passed the cordons along Puriri St after 10 am. She said that the police were "everywhere" and that some were armed.

Janine Delaney and her husband Des drove Puriri St this morning, just a few minutes after the shooting.

"It clearly happened, there were 10 to 15 very shocked people on the footpath with telephones on their ears," said Janine Delaney.

Two minutes later they had passed an ambulance on their way to Puriri St with loud sirens.

It was disconcerting to think that if they had been on their ride a few minutes earlier, they would be in the middle of it, she said.

"It was pretty scary and scary when we found out that there had been a shooting."

Puriri St is a main road between the suburbs of Tawhero and Castlecliff, in the south of the city at the mouth of the Whanganui River.

In 2007, toddler Jhia Harmony Te Tua was shot dead when she slept on a couch in her house on Puriri St in a shrieking shooting.

– Stuff