Police still hunting for car slashers

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33740, 13 January 1975, Page 2

Police still hunting for car slashers

(Neu> Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, January 12.

Auckland detectives are still looking for three men after an incident in Ngapipi Road, Orakei, late on Friday night in which a car was slashed with chains and another car shot at.

Three men in a car forced the driver of another car to pull up by threatening him with a shotgun. When the driver and his passengers ran away, the three men attacked the vehicle with chains.

A short time later a shotgun was fired at a car as it drove past the slashed vehicle. The car stopped and its driver and occupants fled. Detectives said today that the offenders were driving an old car with a noisy- exhaust. DESCRIPTIONS The driver was a European, aged about 22, well built, about 6ft lin, with shoulderlength thick wavy fair hair, the police said. The second man was a Maori, aged about 25, of heavy build, about sft Bin tall, with a scar down one side of his face. He had black collar-length hair. The third person was also thought to be a Maori, aged about 20, of medium build, about sft 9in, with a bushy afro hair style. YOUTH HURT Ross Brennan, aged 16, of Pakuranga, was injured in the incident. He suffered cuts to his hand from flying glass when the shotgun blast shattered the left rear window of the car in which he was a passenger, only inches from his head. “I thought that was it,” Ross Brennan told his father, Mr N. H. Brennan, in describing how he felt when the charge from the shotgun hit the car.

"I instinctively put up my hand and ducked.” The driver of that car, Brent Hayward, aged 17, said the affair began in Tamaki Drive when the two cars travelling in convoy, were flagged down by the occupants of the car with the noisy exhaust. “TOOK OFF” “A guy got out and started waving a chain around. We took off,” he said. lan Hay, aged 16, driver of the car which was leading,

said the noisy car pulled alongside again in Ngapipi Road.

“There was a shotgun pointing out the window and 1 heard a voice yell out to pull over.” he said. “I tried to ‘burn him off’ but couldn’t so I pulled over. “Three guys jumped out, one with a shotgun and two with chains. We opened the doors and ran. As we took Off we heard breaking glass.” As Brent Hayward, who had been some distance behind, drove past, the three youths gathered round the damaged car, the shotgun was fired at his car.

lan Hay said that as he and his friends ran from the scene a police car passed and they flagged it down.