AN UGLY INCIDENT

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23280, 16 August 1945, Page 4

AN UGLY INCIDENT

Bottles Thrown At Police Officer

(N.Z.P.A.) AUCKLAND, Aug. 16. One of the uglier incidents of the day’s celebrations occurred shortly before 6 p.m. when a police sergeant tried to shift on to safer territory several sailors and a civilian who had climbed on to the shop verandah of Milne and Choyce’s store. The men refused to leave their vantage point, and when the sergeant tried to induce them to ascend a ladder and enter the store through a first floor window hostile elements in the large crowd of onlookers began to hurl bottles. Several of the large first floor windows were smashed, fragments of glass showering over the police officer, and a brick which narrowly missed him hurtled through a window on the second floor. Shortly afterward a scuffle which broke out among the crowd created a diversion, enabling the police finally to induce the men to leave the verandah. Other policemen had a difficult time when breaking up the scuffle in the crowd, but eventually peace was restored and everyone dispersed without any arrests being made necessary. One or two other Queen Street stores and shops suffered casualties to their windows. but in most cases they were accidental. The damage to windows at Milne and Choyce’s was probably the most extensive.