AUCKLAND RIOT

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVIII, Issue 126, 23 May 1932, Page 5

AUCKLAND RIOT

Was It Premeditated?

WARNING GIVEN CONSTABLE

DEMONSTRATORS WELL ARMED

(Per Press Association) AUCKLAND, This Day. When addressing the jury at the opening of the Supreme Court trial of fourteen men allegedly concerned in the Queen Street riot on April 14, the Crown Prosecutor, referred to a conversation which took place on the morning of that day between a constable. and one of the accused, named Bourbeau. He said that Bourbeau warned the constable that there would be a riot if the police allowed cars and. other vehicles to go through the procession and Bourbeau added, “You have my sympathy, old man, for, if the fight really starts, yOu will find the demonstrators as well armed as the police.” All the circumstances, said the prosecutor, pointed to the disturbance as being premeditated and prepared for. “It may be urged,” he said, “That some of the accused were overcome by exictement, but all the excitement. in the world cannot put stones in a man’s pocket.”