Monday, December 12, 2005
VIOLENCE CONTINUES
More craziness in sunny Sydney:
New violence erupted in Sydney overnight in the wake of the Cronulla race riot, with gangs of men rampaging through the beachside suburb.
In what may be a reprisal for Sunday’s mob attacks on Australians of Middle Eastern origin at Cronulla, cars carrying up to 50 men [ed: very large cars, evidently] drove into the suburb last night, smashing car windows with baseball bats, witnesses said.
There were unconfirmed reports a person had been shot, reporters in the area saying they heard gunshots near the Northies Hotel.
Cronulla residents last night flooded the suburb’s streets with some claiming they had been told by police they could carry weapons as long as they were discreet.
Cars are a primary target:
Mobs of men have damaged a number of vehicles in an outbreak of fresh violence in the southern Sydney suburb of Cronulla tonight.
A reporter from radio station 2GB said “chaos” had broken out in the beach shopping centre with vehicles damaged and police making arrests as mobs of men roam the streets ...
Police guarding against any repeat of yesterday’s race riot at Cronulla tonight blocked off streets around the Lakemba Mosque, in Sydney’s south-west, after about 500 mostly Muslim men gathered, apparently after rumours of an imminent attack on the building.
There’s more on that mosque guard in this SMH report:
Twenty carloads of men arrived at Cronulla by about 10.30pm, smashing shops, and cars in Elouera Road, and threatening people who got in their way. They reportedly stabbed a woman at Carringbah, but her condition was unknown.
Gunshots were heard near Northies Hotel at Cronulla and there was an unconfirmed report of a man being shot.
About 11.30pm a group of about 100 Cronulla locals surrounded a car carrying men of Middle Eastern appearance, but police cleared the crowd and let the car escape.
Hours earlier, about 200 men had assembled outside Lakemba Mosque - some armed with Glock pistols - and dozens more gathered at Campsie. They were preparing to travel to Maroubra Beach, where up to 300 locals, many armed with crowbars, waited for an arranged fight, according to “Bra Boys” at the beach.
Further on the beach trash v. Lebanese hoodlum contest in the Daily Telegraph. And this from the SMH’s Damien Murphy:
Jennifer Cornwall, who is writing a municipal history of the shire, said Sunday’s riot was part of a continuing problem fanned by the rise of Pauline Hanson, Tampa and terrorists. “Now they’re fighting the ‘Lebs’, as they call them, but I have a 1974 report by the council on problems between locals and so-called ‘wogs’ that talks about parochialism and racism,” she said. “Before that, the locals fought the ‘Bankies’. Really, it’s partly about protecting your territory from outsiders and sticking with your mates."
1974? When Gough Whitlam was Prime Minister? Let’s blame him!