GANGSTER CRIME

Taranaki Daily News, 24 August 1931, Page 9

GANGSTER CRIME

SHOOTING IN NEW YORK toll of six lives taken THOUSAND SHOTS FIRED OUTRAGE ROUSES PUBLIC DEMAND FOR SUPPRESSION By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 5.5 p.m. New York, Aug. 22. The gangster crime wave reached, a climax to-day when warfare flared up in five places in the metropolitan area. Two policemen were shot dead and six others were wounded; three robbers were slain and 15 citizens wounded. The outlawry was renewed in the same district' where bandits recently fired into a crowd, killing a child. Three robbers, raided the Mendoza Fur Company. They killed a patrolman who was guarding a payroll and escaped with £lOOO. Speeding away the bandits fired on a motor-car carrying a woman and child and a fireman whom the bandits took for a policeman. All were badly injured as the robbers raked the car with a machine-gun. The bandits were brought to bay in Bronx after shooting another patrolman, and two were killed. Ail police reserves were called out. Three more persons, a policeman, a taxi-driver and a 13-year-old boy, are in a critical condition and likely to die as a result of the gun battle. The dead bandits have been identified as belonging to law-abiding families, living in New York. They were only 20 years old. Popular feeling still runs high. The newspaper New York American in a black leaded caption on the front page says: “Citizens of New York: This may be the fate of any of you unless you band together and put an end to the terrorism of' crime. Every man and woman in the city should attend the monster mass meeting to-morrow night at Central Park.

“President Hoover is shocked at the atory of widespread slaughter and has directed an immediate investigation by Federal detectives,’’ adds the paper. Mr. Walter Ferguson, chief of the Secret Service eastern division, has been directed to proceed to New York to co-operate with the Federal Department of Justice and the police. He Irn-s also been designated to investigate the position. .Far-reaching changes in the New York Police Department signal and patrol system, with the introduction of radioequipped automobiles for rapid concentration in any part of the city have been announced by the acting-Mayor, Mr. McKee, as a result of recent experiences.

A later message says the death-roll has been increased to six by the death of an infant. More than 1000 bullets were exchanged in, the battle, which extended over 12 miles of streets. The citizens have been aroused to an intense pitch. American Legion officers have offered to mobilise 30,000 exservicemen to aid the police patrol the streets, and a public mass meeting has been called to demand that the reign of terror shall be ended.'