GANGSTERS’ RED RIDE

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LX, Issue 10697, 16 October 1931, Page 3

GANGSTERS’ RED RIDE

[ Slaughter of the Innocents. CIVILIANS OIK AS CCNS SPIT. I ! New York i.s no longer safe to Ihe i in (says a sepcial message to the Syd- | noy Sun i. Babies in the cap' of their ] parents are shot to death. Children i playing innocently in the streets are ! murdered. Peaceful citizens going to work are killed by the bullet-; of racketeer,-- and gangsters, ; Such wa- the charge hurled at the | city adniini; tration by the former ■ Set rotary of Stitte. Mr Cambridge 1 Colby, wiio was chairman when -1,- | eon persons crowded into Madison - Suita re Carden and Ha.nt" l congreuat;cd outside to protest against the ! menace.

Police Commissioner Mnlrooney. speaking later, attributed the crime inn ease to Federal failure in the control and sale of firearms, and to the Prohibition law, which he celled ‘'the responsible creator and the linaucer of tb<‘ vast majority of the most brutal and virions rackets that curse tbe count ry 10-day.” Governor Bno.-evell, in a b-iter read at the me ting said of the increase: "B is your indifference which lias caused it: il is your awakem-d interest which will stop it.” Ifeilcctiue the criticism of Mr Colby, a resolul ioji was adopted urging tin banishment of political interference from tin* Police Department in New York. The whole city is roaring with a demand that something he done. The hold-up of the manager of a lur-dye-ing plant is quoted as a typical instance of Hie ruthless disregard for human life shown by the bandits. As tin' manager, and a policeman guarding Him stepped from their car with a pay-roll of about. £l(infl, two men who had been loitering in a laneway snapped into action. They lired point-blank at the policeman, one bullet piercing the oflicer’s shield and plunging into his heart. Seizing the money the pair forced the manager to start his car. They jumped in and were driven off. One of the wildest chases New York has ever seen then began—a running gun fight through 12 miles of city streets in mid-afternoon, with police firing hundreds of shots at the bandits while these replied with a hail of dum-dum bullets.

Five persons were dead, a sixth was dying, and 11 others were wounded at the end of a long, bloody ride, an hour and a-half litter. The dead were two policeman, two bandits, and the driver of the car. Three of the 1 1 wounded were policemen, and the others were innocent, bystanders or persons who had joined in the chase. The person who died later was little Gloria Lopez, aged J, hit when the chase swept past her father’s car in which she was riding with her parents and a playmate. Her father was cut in the eye by flying glass. The New York Herald Tribune gives a graphic description of how the fight ended when the bandits were riddled with bullets.

"Eight automobiles and taxis, commandeered along the route or mounted by policemen and detectives,” it says, “were in the pursuing force in upper Manhattan, dashing madly along unimpeded stretches of highway, careering around corners, winding in and out of traffic, amid practically continuous shooting. “Hundreds of bullets were tired in the chase. Crowds scattered. Motorists hearing the battle approaching got out of the way, and in some cases joined the wild procession. It roared down Edgecombe Avenue and into 165th Street, shot west to Riverside Drive, and dashed pell-mell up the Drive to Dycham Street and Broadway.

“Down Broadway came the gunmen’s car, and swerved sharply into Sherman Avenue. Pursuers and pursued made a complete circle, of (he area hounded by Dyckham Street Broadway and Nagle Avenue, and were going round a second time when a motor truck hacked out from a kerb squarely in the path of the ha ndits.

“Patrolman .John C. Ryan, of the Wadsworth Avenue Station, came running up. He fin'd two shots into the taxicab window at a distance of only a few feel. Other cars, braking sharply In a stop, discharged a si ream of running policemen with pistols smoking. "The gunmen and their driver, believed to lie an accomplice. were hauled from Hie car dead or dying, (heir bellies riddle with bullets.’’ An emergency city fund of £25.000 has been raised to light gangs, and huge public meetings have demanded that political interference with the work of the police lie checked. Police Commissioner Mulrooney lias revealed that t2 innocent bystanders were felled in Hie streets by gang bullets in the HI months July ol! Four of the victims died.