A SHOOTING DRAMA

Hokitika Guardian, 29 June 1920, Page 3

A SHOOTING DRAMA

TRAIN’S RACE AGAINST BANDITS

A shooting affray, which bore a close resemblance to a scene in a film drama took place near Orleans when four inspectors attached to tile railway -tation at Les Aubrais surprised a group of men who were unloading a truck 'Containing cloth to the value of 50,000 fratifs. The robbers, on being d>scoversd retreated -to their motor car, opening fire as they went, and killing a station employee who had hurried to the scene of the robbery. They rushed off at great speed along the Paris road, but telephone instructions were immediately sent in all directions • and the bandits were stopped at Arthenap by a barricade of farm carts placed across the road. Meanwhile the station master and a- number of gendarmes followed in a light engine along the jail way in the same direction as the ear. which they quickly outdistanced. They left the train at Artbenay, and a few minutes later greeted the robbers with a salvo of rifle shots from behind the barricade. The leader of the bandits was killed, and one man was arrested, but four others succeeded in escaping. Two of them were surprised while having a meal in an inn. Four gendarmes .revolvers in hand, suddenly hurst open the door, crying “Hands up.” One bandit snatched his own pistol out of his pocket and .opened rapid fire compelling the gendarmes to take cover behind the tallies, which they reversed so as to form an extemporised barricade, wild firing con--1 tinned until one bandit was shot dead and the other was wounded and captured. By a strange coincidence the mime 1 of the bandit killed is Louis Bonnot, ■ recalling memories of the famous gang • which terrorised France in pre-war days.