Bullet Passes Near Man In Street

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31082, 10 June 1966, Page 1

Bullet Passes Near Man In Street

A New Brighton resident walking along Marine parade at 10 a.m. yesterday heard a rifle shot, and a bullet whistled past his head.

He glimpsed a figure In Thomson Park, and climbed the fence between the park and the footpath on which he was walking. He accosted a man whom, he described to the police as being aged about 20. and asked him whether he had fired a shot.

The young man said he had earlier seen a man in the park armed with a rifle. As the young man was turning away, the New Brighton resident noticed him put something inside the front of his sports coat. The resident pulled aside the young man’s coat and took a sawn-off .22 rifle from him. The resident said he was taking the weapon to the New Brighton police, and if the young man wanted it back he could claim it from the police.

The weapon had a live round in the breech. The barrel Is silvered, and is only six inches long. The stock of the rifle had been cut down, and the weapon is, in effect, a pistol. The young man who had the weapon was not known to the New Brighton resident.

A 16-year-old youth was arrested at his home by Detective T. Tozer and Constable M. Banks at 10 p.m. He will appear in the Children’s Court today.