Race Riots Erupt In Sydney!
By Les Kennedy, Damien Murphy, Malcolm Brown and Tim Colquhoun
December 12, 2005
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RACIAL violence erupted in several Sydney suburbs last night in retaliation for a rampage by thousands of young residents through Cronulla that turned the seaside suburb into a battlefield.
Political, community and religious leaders joined stunned locals to condemn an afternoon of violence by a crowd that turned on people of Middle Eastern appearance and those trying to protect them, with police and ambulance officers also attacked.
As the violence spread, police cars raced through Sydney streets from Cronulla to Miranda, Brighton-le-Sands, Rockdale, Maroubra, Woolooware and Tempe. Police said they had received reports of firearms being "flashed" threateningly but not discharged. "So far we have had no one shot," an officer said.
A 23-year-old man was in St George Hospital in a serious condition after a fight in Woolooware about 10.25pm. A radio report said he had a knife embedded in his back. Police said the man was with friends when he had an altercation outside a golf club with a "group of males of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern appearance".
In Brighton-le-Sands a group of people were reported to have taken down the Australian flag at the Brighton RSL Club and burnt it in the street. Youths were seen at a garage filling bottles with petrol in nearby Monterey.
Police closed Marine Parade, Maroubra, where people converged in vehicles on the beachfront and began fighting with locals including members of the Bra Boys surf gang. Police said 50 carloads of youths smashed more than 100 vehicles with baseball bats and other weapons. In the same suburb a young girl was punched in the face.
In Rockdale police gathered in riot gear following reports of youths armed with crowbars near the train station after 10pm, a car driver trying to run down a police officer, and items being thrown at police cars in Bay Street, Brighton-le-Sands. The street was blocked off.
Around North Cronulla beach and the surrounding streets, drunk teenagers communicated with each other on walkie-talkies about rumoured sightings of Lebanese gangs.
Commanders from the Bankstown and Campsie patrols were on alert amid fears of outbreaks of violence. Shortly before midnight police received reports of a convoy of up to 40 carloads of youths heading from Punchbowl Oval to the eastern suburbs.
By 12.30am today there were reports of 20 cars with men of Middle Eastern appearance at a BP petrol station in Cronulla, throwing rocks.
At least 13 people were injured during the earlier violence in Cronulla - including five police - and 12 people had been arrested last night.
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