HASTINGS SENSATION

Hokitika Guardian, 21 June 1928, Page 2

HASTINGS SENSATION

FIGHT WITH AIADAfAN. (By Telegraph—Per Press Association.) NAPIER, June 20. Exciting happenings involving an unfortunate demented Alaori, a loaded revolver, and extremely dangerous behaviour, by Constable Craigie, startled the neighbourhood of AA arren St. Hastings, between midnight and one o’clock this morning. The Alaori later identified as an escaped patient from the Porirua Alental Hospital. He was one of the passengers in a service car which arrived in Hastings from the south, shortly after midnight. On the way, the car had a breakdown at Te Aute, and there the native got into a dispute with one of the other passengers, and in the'course of an argument he produced a revolver of somewhat antique pattern. He was, however, induced to put the weapon away, and on reaching Hastings, the driver at once notified the police of the occurrence.

Constable Craigic, accompanied the driver to Warren St. where his unwelcome passenger had alighted, and for a while the two conducted a search unaided. He was passing under a verandah when the man for whom he was searching dropped off the roof on to liis shoulders. The constable was temporarily nonplussed by this unexpected assault, hut he immediately grappled with his attacker. In the scrambling, the native, who was a powerfully built man, lost his grip on the revolver, and during a struggle for the possession of the revolver, two shots were discharged, and it fell then to the ground, where the Constable managed to get his foot on it. The overpowering of the policeman’s opponent, who had all the strength and cunning of a madman, however, was a difficult matter, and it was .only after some fifteen minutes struggling that the constable was able to get him sufficiently under control to allow him to use one hand tq extract ftis whistle

from his pocket, and blow it, bringing several residents from the immediate neighbourhood to his aid. AVith their help, the Alton, who was still full of fight, was . handcuffed and conveyed to the police station by his captors. It is understood that the Alaori was under the delusion that he had been specially engaged by the Government to search for the dangerous criminal, who recently escaped from tho Mount Eden gaol.