Three Police Seriously Injured

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6834, 15 April 1932, Page 7

Three Police Seriously Injured

MANY OTHERS IN HOSPITAL. FURTHER DETAILS OF RIOTING. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Last Niglit. During the riots many -were injured, including police and civilians, and several seriously. The casualties so far known in hospital are: — Detective S. C. Whitehead, of the, central police station, head injuries and concussion, condition serious. Constable A. Hinton, mounted constable, Onehunga, head injuries and concussion, condition serious. Constable W. Cook, central station, head injuries and concussion, condition serious.

Others injured arc: — Sergeant Bruce Thompson, of the waterfront police, head injury. Constable John King, central station, head injury. Constable R. McNeill, central station, broken nose.

Constable P. Solly, central station, injury to left eye. Constable R. Boag, mounted constable, New Lynn, scalp wound. Constable S. Audley, of the waterfront police, scalp wound. Constable L. Morgan, central station, injury to right eye. Constable G. Edwards, central station, injury to right hand. Constable J. Shields, Ponsonby station, injury to arm. Vladimir Antonievic, aged 35, married, of 42 Mount Albert road, -Mount Roskill, severe cut on left hand, not serious. The names of many of the injured civilians arc not known. How the Rioting Started Although the rioting did not break out until some time after tho meeting in tho Town Hall had commenced it was present in its incipient stages when the procession was making its way up Queen street shortly after 7.30. There wero irrcsponsiblcs in tho crowd wno had armed themselves with stones, and at intervals during the march these wero hurled a-t windows. These incidents were scattered, but they were the harbingers of tho appalling scenes which followed.

When the civil servants who headed the procession had entered the hall the main body of the unemployed led by women in the singing of the “Red Flag” were diverted into Grey’s avenue. For a time they stood there orderly enough listening to tho opening remarks from tho amplifier. When tho Town Hall doors leading to Grey’s avenue were thrown open the crowd rushed the hall and the ugly mob spirit showed itself for the first time. Some of the crowd who had gained by force access to the hall, were ejected in a few minutes and a considerable body moved round into Queen street just at tho junction of Queen street and Grey’s avenue. Here the leader of the demonstration was mounted on a balustrade addressing through a megaphone hundreds of his followers who had been crowded out from the meeting. Police were scattered at intervals through the crowd, but they were comparatively few in number and tho ugly undercurrent was already stirring. The leader shouted through tho megaphone that violence was expected. The police were there, he said, and he and his friends wero to bo arrested. The unemployed were not to use violence. They were to let tho police do that. “If t-ho police draw their batons,’’ he said, “the crowd round them must take their batons off them but do not use violence.’’

Another member of the Unemployed Workers’ Association had just started to address tho crowd when a detachment of mounted police arrived. There were six of them and they rode np quietly with no batons in evidence. The crowd by this time was completely blocking Upper Queen street outside the Town Hall and the mounted police reinforced by constables on. foot attempted to clear a passage through them.

Their arrival was signalled by an outbreak of violent mob hysteria and the most disgraceful thing about it was that it was led to a large extent by women.

A Herald reporter was standing just near the. balustrade from which the leaders had been addressing the crowd. Behind him were standing women who were screaming obscenities at the police and inciting the men to “haul them off their horses. ’ ’

-Just when the batons were first drawn and used is difficult to determine. The mounted policemen and several constables on foot had approached the balustrado when suddenly an ugly melee developed. Immediately the air was filled with curses and shouts. Riot in its. most hideous form incomparable in the history of iscw Zealand had broken out and its flames spread like wildfire. The crowd roared with one voice, and for all the appeals of its leaders that voice was the voice of violence.

As if by magic batons appeared among the crowd and then rocks started to hurl through the air, aimed at the mounted policemen whose figures rose above the heads of the crowd. Batons were plied freely as tho police rode round the outskirts of the crowd which was not clear of the middle of the street outside the Town Hall. One rock crashed Uirough the window of a shop opposite the Town Hall, and liko wildfire the shout went round: “Tho brutes are firing at us!” Hours afterwards in Queen street the rumour