SHOTS IN NAPIER

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 December 1944, Page 2

SHOTS IN NAPIER

TWO KILLED—TWO INJURED

MAN ARRESTED NAPIER, December 29. | A fusillade of shots fired from ail , automatic pistol paralysed crowds of (shoppers in Hastings Street, one of the main streets of Napier, at 3.10 o’clock this afternoon. As a result, two persons were killed and two suffered flesh wounds. Holiday visitors to the town, who were crowding the footpaths, panicked when a middleI aged man, now held in custody by the j police, commenced indiscriminate firing in the area bounded by -the post office and the Caledonian Hotel. The victims were:— Killed: Charles Edmund Swain, a barman at the Caledonian Hotel. A boy named Howe or Howell, aged about 14, believed to have been a visitor to the town. I njured: Mrs Allcock, wound in groin. Henry James Karney, aged 83. a retired journalist, of 24 Beauchamp Street, Karori, Wellington. Mrs Allcock was standing outside a tobacconist’s shop when a bullet struck her, while the boy, who was cycling past, received abullet in his temple. He was taken to the hospital, where he later died. It is estimated by the police that at least 20 shots were fired. When Senior-Sergeant F. Forsythe, who was unarmed, grappled with the man, it was found that his revolver still contained five more bullets, while a bag containing a further 17 was slung round his shoulder.

Detective-Sergeant D. McKenzie and Detective A. Reid arrived by car from the police station, armed to shoot it out, but the car was spotted, and two shots were fired at the vehicle, one passing through the front door of the car within six inches of Detective Reid, who was driving. Detective-Sergeant McKenzie, in the rear seat, also had a narrow escape, a bullet passing through the car within a foot of where he was sitting. Kearney, one of the victims, was shot while sitting in the foyer of the hotel. IJe has a wound in his right shoulder. The condition, of Kearney and Mrs Allcock is stated not to be serious.