FIERCE SYDNEY RIOT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 149, 26 June 1931, Page 5

FIERCE SYDNEY RIOT

BATTLE WITH COMMUNISTS RESISTING AN EVICTION TWENTY-SIX MEN INJURED SYDNEY, June 17. The fiercest fight between .police and Communists in the history of Sydney took place in a house in Bankstown, when a man was shot in the thigh and nine policemen, including an inspector, whose skull was fractured, and 16 communists, were injured. The riot, was a result of an attempt by the Communists, who are members of a body called the Unemployed Workers’ Alovemcnt, to resist the eviction of the tenant of the house. Met by a fusillade of stones and bricks, about 40 police had to cut their way through barbed wire entanglements and smash the doors of the house to gain entrance. When the police arrived just after nine o’clock, they found that 16 men were encamped in side the house. The police were ordered to charge the house in the face of a volley of stones. Inspector White was leading the charge, when he was struck on the head by a stone, which fractured his skull and he dropped like a log. Rush with the Batons. From then on the police gave the besieged men no quarter. They rushed forward with batons drawn, cut or climbed over the wire, and broke through the windows, while from within camo the ceaseless barrage of stones. Police outside, to cove their comrades, bombarded the house with stones. Constable Dennis reached the door, and was about to break in when one of the men hit him on the side of the head with a brick and he fell. He staggered up again and the man reached for an iron bar. Dennis threatened to shoot, but the threat was ignored. Dennis fired two shots, one of which took effect in the man’s thigh.

When the police had succeeded in battering their way in, a terrific, battle ensued, with batons on one side and iron bars and sticks on the other. Weight of numbers soon told and the Reds, as they were led from the house, showed the effects of the fight. How Inspector White Was Injured. Dramatic stories of the fight were related by some of the police who took part. 44 When we got inside through a shower of stones,” said one of them, “it was cut and slather. We had to go for our lives. Batons, iron bars, stakes, ax and pick handles were flying everywhere. One man wa. just, about to strike a constable with a bar of iron when I got in first, with my baton, which I smashed on his head.” Another man described how Inspector White was injured. 44 The inspector and I wont to the side window,” he said. “It was protected with barbed wire and sandbags. I smashed the window in order to force an entrance, and as I did so one of the men inside threw a huge piece of rock at me. I ducked., and the missile struck the inspector. 1 rushed to the front, door as a shower of bricks came through the window and a man butted me in the stomach. I punched him on the jaw and handcuffed him. Ho was swearing fiercely.” Many of the injured men were treat ed by the ambulance and others were taken to the hospital. With bodies sag ging and besmeared with blood, the nnti-evictionists presented a woeful sight, 4 4 The police carried too much weight for us,” said one, “but we gave them a go for it. They have had bet ter meals than ve have had of late.” A largo crowd watched the battle from a safe distance. Nows of the encounter spread round the neighbourhood like wildfire. The noise of the conflict could be hoard a quarter of a mile distant. Glass in the windows was smashed by the flying missiles hurled by the besieged and returned by the police vanguard. Devastation in the Cottage. After the battle, the cottage presented a battered appearance. Not a window was left intact, and a side door had been smashed in during the con fiict. Insido there was devastation.

Scarcely a piece of furniture remained. The floors of what Fad once been bedrooms and living rooms were littered with dirt, blue metal, broken glass, and the crude weapons which the occupants had used. Bloodstains marked the floor and the sandbags on the front verandah.. The surroundings were squalid. One of the first, measures taken by the police after gaining admission was to burn the crude bedding which they found lying here and there on the floor. Th' back verandah was littered with Communist literature. Notices of meetings were chalked on the walls. The owner of the cottage estimated the damage to the house at about £l5O. Th'i tenant, he said, had paid £1 deposit on entering the house 15 weeks ago, but since then he had not paid anything.