Stoning of Salvation Army baffles police

Press, 22 September 1978, Page 4

Stoning of Salvation Army baffles police

PA Palmerston North A mysterious bombardment of the Salvation Army’s emergency lodge in Palmerston North in the last 11 days has terrified residents and staff and had the police baffled. Objects such as acorns, eggs, grapefruit, stones, boulders, and lumps of con■rete weighing up to Ikg 1 ■save been hurled at the idge and staff. Police investigating the atacks have also been subject o the barrage. ■ ' Few injuries have been caused although one youth, levin Bent, a son of the ’.ook at the lodge, was hit m the nose and mouth. It is relieved that a policeman 1 vas also hit on the back Of he head. So far most of the damage appears to have been caused to the men’s sleeping quarters at the lodge. Louvre windows and other glass panes, including a sliding door with 6mm-thick glass, have been smashed in salvoes of rocks. 1

Other parts of the lodge have not escaped damage. Wood has been chipped off the two-storey building and from a- new office section. Residents have been too frightened to go out, especially at night, in case they were hit. Staff have boarded up windows and for the last 11 days have remained indoors to avoid being hit. Yesterday, the first day of respite since the attacks began, children were allowed to play outside in a narrow courtyard but were under the supervision of adults. Some of the missiles have landed in the grounds of nearby Mercy Hospital, a situation which is beginning to worry nursing staff there. Sergeant I. E. D. MacGowan said the inquiry was most unusual. “Although we have had as many as 20 policemen at the scene when the objects were being thrown or fired we have found no traces of anybody who could have been responsible,” he said. ' While stones were being

hurled on the premises police using dogs had searched an area within a 200 m radius of the property without success.

Wednesday night had been the first night free of any bombardment.

It appeared that stones would be thrown at anyone in civilian clothes. There had been no apparent deliberate attempt to hit a policeman. Tests had shown that the objects thrown came from “all points of the compass.” One man had walked right around the building and had faced a barrage of missiles coming from every direction. Mr MacGowan said he did not know what else the police could do to solve the mystery. ’“We have had men right around the building, on the roof, and up in trees, and still nothing.” The police were now following a line of inquiry which might suggest that some of the objects may have come from a particular building site.