STREET SHOOTING

Southland Times, Issue 20642, 14 November 1928, Page 10

STREET SHOOTING

CASES IN AUSTRALIA. GANG WARFARE IN SYDNEY. Sydney, October 11. Two remarkable cases of street shooting have occurred in Sydney and Melbourne. It seems to have been definitely established that the Sydney incident was due to gang warfae. The victim will recover, and the police have made an arrest. The Melbourne case is not nearly so simple. There, a youth whose character was said to be ideal in every way, was shot dead at close range, and the police have been unable to find any motive, nor have they made an arrest.

There are points of similarity between the two crimes, for in both instances the shots were fired at close range in a city street. In Sydney the shooting occurred in the Surry Hills district, which harbours most of Sydney’s criminals. A man whose head was swathed in bandages leapt from a taxicab at a street corner, fired two shots in rapid succession at a man who was standing on the footpath, ran back to the car, drove off at a furious pace, and disappeared in the heavy traffic of a city street. The victim of the attack steadfastly refused to give the police any assistance. “I’ll deal with him myself,” he is alleged to have said. This endorses the view that the attack was the outcome of a long-standing vendetta between two sections of the underworld whose methods of offence and defence are the use of the razor blade and the revolver.

The wounded man is William Dillon, a dealer, better known to his friends as “Darky” Davis. He hastened into the shadows of the street when the taxi appeared on the scene, but the car drew up at the curbing near where he was standing. The door of the car was flung open and a man sprang out. Producing an automatic pistol from his overcoat he called out loudly: “I’ve got you now.” Two shots were fired, and Dillon, badly wounded in the chest and on the face, crashed to the pavement. The gunman watched the huddled body of his victim for a few minutes before he hurried away. Another dealer—the inhabitants of the underworld are mostly “dealers,” when requested to state their calling to the police —stands charged with shooting with intent to murder.

The victim of the Melbourne shooting was a youth, William George Law, aged 19, and the crime was committed just after midnight, when Law was returning home from a party at a friend’s house. He was accompanied by a friend —a youth about his own age —and was walking close to the curb. Suddenly a shot rang out, and Law fell to the footpath dead. Immediately after the shot was fired a motor-bicycle started, and it is presumed that the gunman escaped on this. Nobody was to be seen in the street, which was in a residential area in South Melbourne. Law was the youngest of five children, and, according to the statements made to the police by relatives and friends, he had no enemies and had never been in any kind of trouble. He was of an industrious disposition, and his employer spoke most highly of him. For these reasons the theory was put forward that he was the victim of mistaken identity.

The police refused to accept the theory that Law was shot in mistake for somebody else. They state that the street in which the shooting occurred was well lighted. The size of the bullet—. 22 calibre—which was recovered from Laws head, indicated that the shot was fired at a comparatively short range. The detectives have been told by a young girl who walked along the street just before Law and his friend that she saw nobody in the street. A woman who resides nearby, and who was on the verandah of her house until midnight, also said that she did not see anybody; nor did she hear the sound of a motor-bicycle starting after Law had been shot. The course of the bullet indicates that it was fired from the street and not from a building. The detectives searched the neighbourhood for the revolver, but were unable to find it