FIVE SHOTS FIRED.

Waikato Times, Volume 110, Issue 18406, 13 August 1931, Page 8

FIVE SHOTS FIRED.

A.M.P. MANAGER’S ROOM. A MYSTERIOUS ATTACK. (Special to Times.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. Details are now revealed of a desperate attack on the room of Mr C. M. Martin, general manager of the Australian Mutual Provident Company,

The attack took place at 4.30 on a business afternoon recently, and the assailant fired five shots which crashed through the thick plateglass window and struck the wall of the manager’s room, the corner room on the first floor of the new skyscraper which the company erected a few years ago. Fortunately, the inmate of the room had the presence of mind to keep low. Had he attempted to leave the room he must have been struck by one of the bullets.

The neat round holes punctured through the glass now remain, four of them in one small group, the fifth somewhat higher and to tlie right. The man who fired these shots remains unknown. The surprising feature of the direction of the shots is that they appear lo have come from the first floor of the building diagonally opposite, which is tlie Bank of Australasia. Yet present information has totally failed to reveal any sign of the desperate attacker. So far the police are without clue and without certainty that they know the spot from which the shooting took place, they must have been aimed from the same floor of a neighbouring building; yet occupants of nearby structure state that they know nothing of revolver shots, and that they have been unable to conjure up any clue to the identiy of the person who did the shooting.

Such a state of affairs, particularly on a business afternoon, is amazing. The only tiling which can account for the event is the fact that the shots were fired just before a holiday and that everyone was concentrating upon getting away for the day. The police are continuing their investigations, but, so far, without any sign of success; and in tlie meantime tlie live bullet holes remain in the window, mute witness to the most sensational attack in Wellington for many years past.