RUSSIAN CLUBS TWO POLICEMEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 180, 1 August 1925, Page 23

RUSSIAN CLUBS TWO POLICEMEN.

SIEGE OF BARRICADED HOUSE.

Amazing scenes took place in Old Kent Road, S.E., when a Russian barricaded himself In rooms above offices belonging to the North Camberwell Unionist Association, hurled furniture into the road, and injured two policemen with a heavy club.

Mr. E. Fisher and Mr. L. Hirschorm, who work next door to the Unionist offices, said the man drove up about 2 p.m. In a taxlcab whose meter registered a large sum. He was unable to pay. The man Jumped from the cab and got away in a tramway car.

In the afternoon the man's wife and three children left, saying they were afraid of him.

When a policeman entered the house In the evening he was met at the first landing by the man armed with a pair of scissors and a wooden club. A struggle followed, and tho constable was severely hurt. Two more police then went upstairs, only to be beaten back from behind a barricade by the man. Another constable was hurt. An ambulance was called, and while the constables were entering it a heavy gas stove fell on to lt from above, followed by a continuous ram of missiles.

Five more constables were called to the house, but meanwhile the man had made his way, after smashing 22 windows and wrecking all the upper rooms, to the back of the offices. He. was seen by a Mr. Ernest Jones at a top window with a heavy stick in his hand. A further bombardment of furniture followed. Then the man Jumped from the upper window on to a projecting roof, slid down a drainpipe, and reached the ground.

Describing what followed, Mr. Jones said: We closed. Sly wife came to my help, hittins the man on the head. He was strong, however, and In addition to biting my arm, he tore my ear. A friend from next door came up, and together we held the man until the police arrived and took him away.