CONFLICTING STORIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 125, 28 May 1936, Page 9

CONFLICTING STORIES

INQUIRY PROBABLE

SHOOTING OF VICTORIAN

POLICE HEAD

MELBOURNE, May 27.

It is practically certain that ■ the State Cabinet will appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the shooting of Detective-Superintendent Brophy and possibly into tl*e administration of the Police Department.

Ministers are said to be dissatisfied with the conflicting stories attending Brophy's injuries and the attitude of the Commissioner, Sir Thomas Blarney.

A Melbourne cable published last Monday stated • that Superintendent John O'Connell Brophy, who began 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 Mr. Brophy was accidentally shot in the right arm while handling his own pistol at police headquarters. . Newspaper reporters, who were banned at the detective office, however, ascertained that Mr. 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 Mr. 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 Mr. Brophy could manipulate his own revolver, which jammed. One bullet passed through Mr. Brophy's lower jaw, just missing a vital artery, and emerged at the back of. his neck. Another broke his right wrist, and a third was deflected from his heart by the buckle of his braces. • • . ■

The international .cable news appearing in this issue is published by arrangement with the Australian Press Association and the "Sun" "Herald," News Office, Limited.