Gangs clash, 6 on charges

Press, 7 February 1986, Page 3

Gangs clash, 6 on charges

PA Palmerston North Six men will appear in the District Court at Palmerston North today on charges relating to a gang confrontation in the city on Wednesday during which a shot was fired. The men were arrested by the police just out of Masterton several hours after a lunchtime fracas, and charged with unlawful assembly. Onlookers said the fight started when Mongrel Mob members, driving a station waggon, confronted members of the Palmerston North Mothers motor-cycle gang outside the State Theatre.

Senior-Sergeant Eric Bryan said a shot fired during the melee penetrated a pane of a doubleglazed window in a first floor. office of Bennett’s Book Shop. Bennett’s general manager, Mr Trevor Day, said he had seen the fight. A station waggon had hit -v the , State Theatre, crashing into one of the motor-cycles that were al-

ways parked outside it at lunchtime. “The door of the car flew open and gang members piled out and started to beat one of the bikies away from their bikes, ” said Mr Day. “Then another chap grabbed a wooden or iron bar, smashed the headlight of a bike and pushed it over. The car reversed, the blokes jumped in and they took off. “A bikie ran out into the road screwing something together that looked like a pipe then it went off with a flash and a bang. “I don’t think it was meant to go off then, as it was still pointing upwards rather than down Broadway after the car. “He then put it back in his pocket and the bikies took off.”

Mr Day said that when he returned to his upstairs office he found that a window had been broken and a bullet lodged be-tween-two panes of double glazing.