BRAWL IN AUCKLAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 May 1938, Page 7

BRAWL IN AUCKLAND

DANGEROUS SITUATION DEVELOPS TWENTY POLICE SUMMONED. EIGHT MEN ARRESTED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, May 15. About 20 police from the Central and Queen’s Wharf stations were summoned on Saturday evening to quell a brawl which broke out at the corner of Queen and Customs Streets. The situation at one stage appeared dangerous, and it was half an hour before the police had the disturbance in hand. Eight men were placed under arrest and will appear in the Magistrates’ Court tomorrow on charges of resisting arrest and of obstructing the police. The trouble arose when Sergeant J. Southworth and Constable R. Bell were, arresting a man on a charge of drunkenness shortly after 6 o’clock. The man gave some trouble and his companions interfered, three being arrested. By this time a crowd had gathered and a hoodlum element became violent, police reinforcements being obtained within a few minutes from the Central station, where an urgent request for assistance had been sent.

The crowd had been greatly augmented and spread across Customs Street and on to the tramlines in Queen Street, causing slight delay to traffic, but most of the people were simply onlookers. A portion of the crowd showed a hostile attitude to the police, however, and suffles occurred, the police being kept fully occupied in quelling outbreaks of violence. Some of the police reinforcements were in civilian dress, others were in shirt sleeves and others were in full uniform or without helmets. Batons were carried, but they were not used, in spite of the extreme unruliness and provocation of a section of the crowd. One of the men who was the original cause of the disturbance escaped from a taxi in which he was about to be taken to the police station, but he was recaptured. He had gone quietly to the taxi, but on being placed inside, he opened the opposite door and jumped out.

Much resentment was shown by a large proportion of the crowd at the action of the police in detaining the men, the man who was arrested on the charge of drunkenness having strenuously denied he was intoxicated. The chief difficulty of the police was in breaking up groups of these people whe opposed any move on the part of the police.

No one was seriously hurt, but one constable was knocked down and received a kick on the nose. A second constable was slightly injured and two participants in the brawl received minor injuries.