CRIME WAVE IN PARIS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20354, 10 March 1928, Page 11

CRIME WAVE IN PARIS

OUTRIVALLING CHICAGO. POWERLESSNESS OF THE POLICE. (Pres* Association—By Telegraph—Copyright-) PARIS, March 8. (Received March 9. at 9 p.m.) This city is outrivalling Chicago as a crime centre. Never in its history has there been such a wave of press and public attack upon the police and their powerlessness in dealing with criminality. There has scarcely been a day of the new year without som c terrible crime, the perpetrators escaping. To-day the body of a motorist was found on the banks of the Seine, the victim being kidnapped from h. motor car, which was abandoned at the Bois de Boulogne. A sensational scene was enacted at the Paris Divorce Court. When the judge, whose duty it is to try to reconcile people before divorce action, announced the husband's refusal to compromise with his wife, the latter, who is a Serbian, aged 23, drew a revolver from a handbag and shot herself in the heart. The newspaper Quotidien comments that the_ crime wave threatens to submerge the police organisation. There are three reasons for the crime wave—the police are insufficient and are inadequately equipped, juries will not convict, and th e heads of departments are incompetent.—A. and N.Z. Cable.