Siege ends without serious injury

Press, 17 April 1982, Page 1

Siege ends without serious injury

Special correspondent Tauranga Hynd Street in Tauranga was quiet again last night, hours after it was the scene of a destructive outburst by gang members, in which police vehicles were burnt and shots were fired. The burnt-out,police car,, which sat in the north-west-ern suburb of Greerton. was gone after having been there for most of the day. Also gone were a prison van; which had been set on fire, and a team police van which was damaged.. The damaged vehicles were towed away at about 1.30 p.m. yesterday. Drums and planks were’ used to cordon the street while policemen began inquiries into the battle which began on Thursday night and ended 'more than four hours later when the police waited for gang members to come out of the Hynd Street house.

Yesterday morning Hynd Street looked like a battleground. Police helmets lay in the street and broken glass was strewn about. One young man was still shaking as he counted events of the night before . One resident told how he had heard shooting outside his house on Thursday night. “I heard crunch, crunch." They were up there (oh a house roof) firing." he said. "Every now and then the whole room would light up with exploding Molotov cocktails. You could see the flames shooting up.” One young woman said she awoke to the sound of shooting. The police telephoned and asked people to leave their homes. A grader was used to block a street when the police tried to make sure the gang members did not get out of the area. Armed offenders squad

men. called in from Rotorua, called rifles. A “stand off" situation evolved. Someone who was in the house yesterday said that they had locked themselves in. There had been “kids in the house," the person said. A Maori warden and a social worker had attended the incident and persuaded the gang members to surrender their arms and come out. about 4 a.m. Chief Inspector Brian Wells, of Tauranga. said a constable, suffered a bruised leg in the incident and one of the men now in police custody was slightly injured when he apparently clung to a police car door as policemen tried to withdraw, the Press Association reported. "How someone was not killed I don’t know." he said.

The incident started when two policemen stopped a car for a traffic offence. "My two men were attacked and when we later called at a Greerton address shots were tired from the house.” Mr Wells said.

A patrol car and a prison van, together worth about $45,000. were totally burnt out and another van suffered about $lB,OOO damage in the fire-bombings. Eight men appeared yesterday in the District Court at Tauranga and were remanded to April 23. No pleas were taken. The police are seeking others.