SENSATION IN OPOTIKI

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 June 1939, Page 3

SENSATION IN OPOTIKI

SHOTS FIRED IN STREET. MAN WITH RIFLE DISARMED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) OPOTIKI, June 22. Coolly ignoring threats that he would be shot if he approached closer, Sergeant J. Isbister on Tuesday night, in Opotiki, disarmed a man with a pea-rifle who had threatened a number of persons. The first indication of trouble was given when the man visited Mr Guthrie’s bakery and pointed the rifle at the proprietor. Mr Guthrie remonstrated with him for his foolhardy action and walked over and examined the rifle. He received a shock to find that it was loaded. The man was quite apologetic and said he would go to Mr Collier’s blacksmith and complain about the rifle being loaded. The man went to the blacksmith shop and had the rifle examined. He returned about a quarter of an hour later and said the bullet was jamming. Mr Collier extracted a cartridge. As the man’s manner was strange, Mr Collier suggested that he should leave the rifle, but he would not agree and took it away. He stopped in front of the main door of the Roman Catholic convent, and Mr Collier heard him call out that the gun was loaded and he was guarding the convent. Mr Collier asked a boy to go out the back door to the police station. While he was away Mr Collier went out to the front door and asked the man to come over. The man called out, “Keep out of the light,” and a few second afterward fired the rifle, the bullet going wide. Mr Collier moved further into the shop and a minute or two later the man fired again. The bullet struck the shop roof. He continued to stand guard at the convent door for some minutes till Sergeant Isbister and Constable W. Cooper came into the street. As a motor-car passed he levelled the rifle at it and kept the car covered for some distance, but he did not fire. He then walked in the direction of the police and immediately levelled the rifle at the sergeant. “Keep back or I will drill a hole through you,” he said. The sergeant walked toward the man, who kept him covered till he was only about 10 yards away. He told the sergeant to stand back or he would be drilled. Sergeant Isbister told the man who he vzas, and he lowered the rifle for a moment. Then he said, “Who is that over there?” and immediately levelled the rifle at Constable Cooper, who was some distance behind. Sergeant Isbister walked up to the man and seized the rifle.

The man was in a highly excited condition, and was threatening to shoot anyone who came near the convent. A number of men who had been hiding in the blacksmith shop came up and the man rushed at one of them, Mr T. Walker, and struck him in the face. While being taken to the police station he continued to say he would shoot anyone going near the convent.

The rifle was found to have been taken from a youth named Kururangi. When arrested the man had 29 cartridges in his possession, and two live cartridges and three spent ones were found by the police on the footpath where he had been standing. When examined by the police it was found that the rifle was not loaded, but contained a spent cartridge. The- man was medically examined and was committed to the Auckland Mental Hospital. He recently suffered head injuries in a motor accident.