Fight started by a dog called Trouble

National, Normal
Source:

The National

A FIGHT in Lae yesterday morning, apparently started by a dog, between employees of two major companies, has left several people injured and thousands of kina in damages to properties.
Two expatriates were hospitalised at the Tusa Private Hospital while several Papua New Guineans were treated for injuries at Angau Memorial Hospital.
Heavily armed police were deployed at mid-morning yesterday to keep order.
Discussions were also being held between the managements of the two companies to resolve the problem.
The fight between employees of Frabelle and Frescomar fish companies and Lae Builders and Contractors started on Monday afternoon.
The dog, ominously named Trouble, was owned by the squatter who also owns a small stevedoring company.An employee of one of the fish companies, who had decided to take a short cut to work from The Esplanade at the end of the old Lae airport through a squatter’s home was bitten by a dog, police said.
When the dog-bite victim arrived at work bleeding, his colleagues asked where he was bitten by the dog and he led them to the dog owner’s house, which was in between Lae Builders and Frescomar near the Lae Port.
Apparently, there were no discussions.
A fight broke out in which properties belonging to employees of Lae Builders and Contractors at Speybank Street, Milfordhaven, were destroyed.
After learning yesterday morning that their properties, worth thousands of kina were destroyed the previous evening, the LBC workers retaliated.
They smashed two pump boats (Melani 9 and Melani 21) to pieces using a backhoe and destroyed the glasses of eight others, witnesses said.
According to the chairman of the Morobe Fishermen Cooperative Paul Kega, the boats were valued at K50,000 each.
They were owned by the fishermen from Bosadi village in Morobe patrol post and Mange in Finschhafen.
The Frabelle and Freshcomar employees then attacked the LBC employees to stop them from further attacks when they shot the operator of the backhoe with a slingshot and burnt the equipment down.