CROWD ANGERED AT TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 251, 20 October 1923, Page 7

CROWD ANGERED AT TRAGEDY.

MIGHT HAVE BEEN A LYNCHING. HEAKT-RENDfiCi.; SCENKS. POLICE ACT [OX PRAISED. (By Telegraph.— Own correspondent.! WAIHJ, this day. During the shooting some of the crowd which had gathered outside the school wanted to rush the headmaster's room, where the desperate man had barricaded himself, but the police induced them to keep off. Constable Olsen was shot when looking through a crack in the door, and the bullet also narrowly missed Senior Sergeant O'Grady, who was standing next the constable. Towards the final scene, when' Higgins had thrown his revolver through the window, Sergeant O'Grady ordered him to put his hands up, otherwise he would be shot dead. The crowd was so angered at the appalling tragedy just enacted that an attempt to lynch the murderer seemed quite probable. Plucky Police. The action of Senior Sergeant O'Grady and the police under him in running the dangerous risk, and the method adopted by him in bringing about tha surrender of an absolutely desperate criminal, deserves considerable commendation, and probably saved loss of further lives. The police participating were: Constables Olsen, Trask, Whiting (Waihi) and McClinchy (Paeroa). When the shooting first commenced, and the terrible result became known in the township of Waikino, a bell was rung, and a large crowd assembled outside the school. Those who witnessed the first stages of the tragedy state that the mad- rush of the half-demented children from the school and down the steep hilly path to the township vras heartrending and appalling. "Wanted to go to Mummy." Of the two boys killed, Stewart was shooting the cheek, the bullet passing through his brain, and McLean was shot through the back of the head. It is stated that Stewart appealed to the murderer not to shoot him as he "wanted to go home to his Mummy." The police have since visited the farm residence of Higgins, and found a quantity of gelignite and caps. It is said that Higgins was a crack shot with the revolver.