Shot Fired On Crowded Wharf

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30895, 30 October 1965, Page 16

Shot Fired On Crowded Wharf

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, Oct. 29. A young man carrying a loaded .303 rifle was arrested on the Captain Cook Wharf at Auckland shortly before the passenger liner Castel Felice berthed there at six o’clock tonight.

At least one shot was fired before he was restrained by three men. No-one was hit by the bullet, but two of the men who helped restrain the man suffered minor knife wounds in the struggle. Many people were on the wharf to meet the liner when the shot was fire. Mr W. Kepa, a rigger on the wharf, said he was walking with two friends behind the port building in Quay street shortly before 5.30 p.m. when he heard a shot. “I looked up and saw a man about 30 yards away carrying a rifle,” he said. “I threw myself to the ground and pushed one of my friends to the ground also. The other

one was already lying down. “The man then started running towards us and as he passed me 1 kicked his ankle and he tripped. | “The rifle was thrown astray and I told my friend to grab it. “At this stage I was struggling with the man and trying to take from him a knife he had pulled. I finally did and threw it over the wharf.” Mr Kepa said that during the struggle the knife grazed his upper right thigh. His friend suffered a gashed left hand which required hospital attention. The Auckland Harbour Board gate-keeper on duty at the time, Traffic Officer D. H. Sullivan, said he took a gun belt from the man’s waist. It was almost full of bullets.