POLISH SIDNEY STREET.

Otago Witness, Issue 3018, 17 January 1912, Page 61

POLISH SIDNEY STREET.

RUSSIAN ROBBER BESIEGED.

MACHINE GUNS USED.

Full accounts have reached London of the 40 hours' siege sustained at Lodz bj a notorious robber named Banasiak, wh< took refuge in the garret of a house ant* held at bay a large force of police. Banasiak, who was with two other men, had been recognised by some detective* in one of the chief streets of th£ town. The detectives ordered them to hold up their hands. They replied by drawing revolvers and firing at the detectives, on* of whom was wounded. They then took to flight, pursued by the detectives, and continuing a more or less random fire, whereby two men, two women, and a boy aged 10 were wounded. A police officer and a policeman tried to stop the fugitives, but without success. The officer had a narrow escape, one of the bullet* fired at him piercing his hat.

The criminals were seen to run into a house in Zielony street, which was promptly surrounded by the police. Banasiak'e companies escaped in some way or other for, as it subsequently transpired, Banasiak himself was alone entrapped. H« ran up to a garret in the house, and received his pursuers with a hail of bullets. The chief of police arrived on the scene, and summoned him to surrender. Banasiak replied that he would never be captured, and would fight until the end, keeping his last bullet for himself. A REGULAR SIEGE. This was between 4 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Troops were called out and a regular siege began, which lasted •40 hours. The inmates of the house were told what was to occur, and left their homes with whatever valuables they possessed. All the tralfic in the neighbourhood was suspended, and cordons were drawn across the street. Banasiak'c refuge was riddled with bullets throughout the night, but his own fire never slackened. It was not until after midday next day that there was a long pause of silence in the house, and a policeman volunteered to ascertain whether the criminals were dead. (It was wrongly believed that all the men were in the house.) The policeman climbed the stairs, but wa6 met by Banasiak, who fired at him from above, wounding him in the leg. He managed to crawl into one of the flats on tlie third floor, and from there his companions rescued him through a hole they made in the ceiling below. The authorities fnow decided to use machine guns, and either two or four—the accounts vary—were brought up. They were posted on the roofs of the opposite houses, and poured a hot fire into Banasiak's "fort." When the order "Cease fire !" was given, no one imagined that Banasiak could possibly have survived. Nevertheless he went on firing, and it waa determined to blow up the garret with pyroxeline. A powerful .cartridge was exploded in the house and wrecked part of the roof and staircase. But Banasiak was not yet hors de combat, as was shown when a straw figure dressed in policeman's uniform was placed in a window facing the garret, anddrew several shots from him. The machflfe gun was again turned on the house, and with such effect that no human being could have ©scaped the fire. There was complete silence in the house, and when after an interval of several hours the police entered the garret they found Bana. siak lying dead on a sofa with several wounds in different parts of hie body, but still grasping a revolver in one hand and a Mauser pistol in the other. Empty cartridges were strewn over the floor.