Police Search After Shooting

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31585, 24 January 1968, Page 1

Police Search After Shooting

(From Our Own Reporter> GREYMOUTH, January 23. Police officers were threatened by an armed man at Dunollie, seven miles north of Greymouth, tonight.

The man. who had been shooting at sheep on the hillside beside his home, headed into nearby bushes, telling approaching constables that he would “get anyone who came near.”

After a three-hour search by armed police, the man was arrested by Constable B. Gough, of Greymouth, on the railway incline above Dunollie at 7.55 p.m. Constable Gough was unarmed.

The man had discarded two rifles, one of .22 calibre and one of .303 calibre. The man. a 28-year-old married Railways employee, will appear in the Magistrate’s Court in Greymouth tomorrow morning.

He will appear on charges of being intoxicated in charge of a firearm and with being in possession of a firearm without lawful purpose.

Further charges could be made, a police officer said tonight. The man was taken into custody by Detective Sergeant N. J. Dennehy and Detective J. A. Howat, of the Greymouth C. 1.8.

The search party also incuded Senior-Sergeant J. A. Waugh and Sergeant K. J. O’Driscoll, and several constables. Senior Traffic Officer G. G. Hood and Traffic Officer K. L. Bamford controlled traffic at various intersections in Dunollie.

The Press Association says the man started shooting at sheep shortly before 5 p.m. Accounts vary, but it is believed that between 20 and 30 shots were fired. Three sheep were killed.