SHOOTING OF POLICE OFFICER

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 147, 18 March 1937, Page 11

SHOOTING OF POLICE OFFICER

Man Charged With Intent

to Murder

Melbourne, March 17

As a sequel to the shooting affair on May 22 last year. Superintendent John O'Connell Brophy appeared in the City Court, to-day and identified Geoffrey Davies, aged 32, as the man who shot him.

Davies, who was charged with having wounded Superintendent Brophy with intent to murder, was committed lor trial.

In ' May last year Superintendent Brophy, who had begun duty as chief of the Victorian Criminal Investigation Branch a week previously, was shot in the face and the right arm in some mysterious manner. The Police Department was at first exceedingly reticent. A Police Press Bureau official declared that Brophy was accidentally shot in the right arm while handling his own pistol at police beadquarters. Newspaper reporters, who were banned at the detective office, ascertained, however, I hat Brophy was shot by a hold-up gang who mistook him for a prominent Melbourne bookmaker who habitually carries a large sum of money and resides in Parkville suburb.

Subsequently an official police statement declared that Brophy went to Royal Park to try and catch some car bandits who had been operating in that locality, and was himself held up by two armed men, who apparently recognised him, and fired three shots before Brophy could manipulate his own revolver, which jammed. One bullet passed through Brophy’s lower jaw, just missing a vital artery, and emerged at. the back of his ueek. Another broke his right wrist, and a third was defleeted from his heart, by the.buckle of his> braces. Brophy was accompanied by two women.

The Stale Cabinet appointed a Royal Commission to inquire into the affair. Ministers were said to ho dissatisfied witli the conflicting stories attending Brophys’ injuries and tlie attitude of the Commissioner. Sir Thomas Blarney. The report of the Commission completely exonerated Brophy.