Police Struggle To Disarm Youth

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31856, 7 December 1968, Page 14

Police Struggle To Disarm Youth

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, December 6.

While one police officer held the attention of a youth who had threatened him with a loaded rifle at Wattle Bay, Waikowhai, this morning, another officer pounced on the youth and disarmed him after a struggle.

Earlier the youth, aged 16, had pointed the rifle at two young girls in a bach at the bay and ordered them to cook him some food. The girls called the police when the youth had left the bach.

The girls, Miss Judy Kilmister, aged 17, and Miss Susan Porter, aged 17, were in the bach at 8.45 a.m. when the youth came in. Miss Porter said: “He pointed the gun at us and said ‘I want some food’. We gave him bread and some eggs, meat and potatoes. Then he had a cup of tea with us.

“He wasn’t violent at all and he told us what he had been doing. “He was a bit shaky with the gun, but I was frightened. I thought I would never see my father again. “Then about 10 o’clock he said he had to go and meet a mate and he left. He said

if we called anyone he would shoot us.”

Miss Porter, a sixth form pupil at Mount Roskill Grammar School, said she and Miss Kil mister left the bach when the youth had gone. The police were informed and Constables K. Eunshuistra and C. C. Carr and a police dog arrived. “Pointed Gun”

Miss Kilmister, a nurse, said she went back to the bach with the police. “He was crouching down with the gun in his hands,” she said. “He pointed it at the policeman and said “The gun is loaded you know’.” While Constable Eunshuistra talked to the youth, she said, Constable Carr edged round and finally jumped on him and grabbed the rifle. The youth was then handcuffed. Rifle Loaded Chief Inspector T. Jones, head of the Mount Albert police division, described the constables' actions as “an exceptional effort". The rifle

was loaded and one bullet was in the breech, he said. Mr Jones also praised the actions of the two girls. They did the right thing, he said, in co-operating with the youth until he left. A youth wil appear before the Children’s Court this morning.