TRAMWAYMAN SHOT

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 October 1930, Page 4

TRAMWAYMAN SHOT

SENSATION AT CIRCULAR QUAY. SYDNEY, September 25. There was a wild scatter for safety last night |at Circular Quay, when ihree siiots rang out and a tramwayman fell to the ground, wounded in the right thigh. Other tramwaymen rushed at the man who had fired the shots, the revolver was wrested fro.m him, and he* was seized. Adolphus Ernest Siebeit, a tramway starter, oi Lane Cove-road, Artarmon, the wounded man was taken to Sydney Hospital. His wound is not. a serious one. About 20 minutes to 7 o’clock Siebert, was standing at the tramway starting cabin at the foot of Young Street, when a young man approached him. The stranger appeared to be extremely excited. “You’re the man who had me suspended from my tram this afternoon for being drunk,” he exclaimed. Siebert looked at the man to see whether ho was joking, and then said, “I never suspended you.” “You did, I know you did, and I’m going to get you,” said the newcomer.

Little more than that v;as said, and then the young man plunged his ham’ in his right poeket and began to fire through his coat. Siebert fell with a cry of pain when one of the bullets struck him in the thigh. People who had been standing about scattered in all directions. Then someone shouted “Get him!” and there was a rush towards the young man, and the revolver was taken and his arms were pirn ned. At this moment Sergeant Smith and. Constable Roberts, of the Water Police, who had been a hundred yards or so away, rushed to the spot and took the man into custody. Detective Hardy inquired into the affair, questioning the captive, wounded man, and these who witnessed the shooting. The suspected man, who said that he was a tramway guard, and had been suspended from duty during the afternoon hurst into hysterical laughter, which continued alter he had been placed in the cells. Siebert, who had not been long on duty, declared that he had uot suspended any tramway employee from duty. He was not aware whether anysuspensions had been made by the tram starter, whom he had relieved, and who had been on duty during the afternoon.