Wairoa's mayor says the community are "embarrassed, shocked and in disbelief" after a number of people were injured in a gang-related incident following a rugby match over the weekend.
Police were called to the altercation involving weapons on Hunter-Brown St in the Hawke's Bay town around 3pm on Saturday.
Wairoa Mayor Craig Little told Breakfast the fight broke out between younger gang members, before older members "got in".
"It's just so disappointing with what Wairoa's going through at the moment. We don't need this and it's just an embarrassment.
"Where is the leadership of these gangs? They should have just jumped in there and stopped it," he said.
Wairoa Response Manager Senior Sergeant Scott Leighton said officers were following "positive lines of inquiry" to identify who was involved.
"We are continuing our work to piece together what happened."
Little said he knew and had worked with many of the gang members as a leader within his community, saying recently they had been "pretty good to be honest".
"I'm just so disappointed. I know [fighting] is a spur of the moment thing for a lot of young fellas, but we've got to put our town on the map. And people have been helping us across the country and now they look at this and think, 'oh my god what's going on?'."
He said the community had expressed to him how "embarrassed, shocked and in disbelief" they were that innocent bystanders were being put at risk by gang activity.
"They've been working with some of these gang guys, and I'm just so disappointed. They've really shown themselves in a bad light this time."
Little said the next step was to "get the gang leaders together" to come up with solutions.
"I know they won't be happy, the ones who are really genuine … We just have to stop it and it really plays into the hand of what the Government is saying, you put a patch on somebody and it creates bad behaviour, and it did on Saturday so it just has to stop."
Little said this appeared to be a "one-off" and he would continue to engage with gang members.
"If you're not talking with them, you've got no chance. We haven't had something like this in a long time. We've had little skirmishes as every town does, but this one was a shock."
Anyone with relevant information about the incident was urged to contact police on 105.
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