Girls Thrown In Pond By Hooligans At Zoo

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29271, 1 August 1960, Page 10

Girls Thrown In Pond By Hooligans At Zoo

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, July 31.

Police were called to restore order at the Auckland zoo this afternoon after a knife-throwing incident and outbreaks of hooliganism. Several youths were taken to the police station for questioning and some will be charged. Two 14-year-old girls, innocent bystanders, were thrown in the duckpond by about 20 youths. x With the gang were six other girls, who had three babies with them. The youths also threw the six girls into the pond.

They then gathered around the wolves’ cage and one youth was seen shooting at a wolf with an air pistol. .

Several others then moved to the red deer cage and when a stag pushed an antler through the wire netting, they tied it to. the wire with a hatband. They then broke off five inches of the stag’s antler.

In another incident, a crippled youth was alleged to have thrown a knife at a boy. With a sheath knife stuck in his belt, the youth later denied the attack to Mr J. Brooks, the head keeper at the zoo, but the younger boy pressed his complaint. The crippled youth will be charged in the Magistrate’s Court later. Mr Brooks said he first received a complaint at his office at 3.35 p.m. that two girls had been thrown in the duckpond. Almost immediately afterward the knife incident was reported. He brought the crippled boy to his office and questioned him, but almost immediately received the report that youths had broken an antler from the red deer stag. Yet another caller reported that Other youths were shooting at the wolves. At this stage, Mr Brooks called the police. One patrol car was sent with a sergeant and three constables and a local constable also arrived.

A broadcast was made over the zoo loudspeaker system for eyewitnesses to the incidents and soon the area around Mr Brooks’s office was crowded with husbands and wives with their children, other witnesses, zoo keepers, policemen and youths’ girl friends. Mr Brooks’s office was packed with the youths alleged to have been involved.