Police clash with gang

A gang of armed criminals set up two roadblocks along the main road into Alotau and engaged in a gunfight with police as their friends attempted to rob a shop in Milne Bay last week.
Police commander Supt Peter Barkie said the gang used logs, wires and burning tires to set up roadblocks at Sinadai and Waighani while their friends, including some women, broke into the mini mart just outside town.
Barkie said police were alerted by the mini mart and the quick response unit from Port Moresby that was recently sent to Alotau for the election duties responded.
“But when they drove up from the town, they encountered the first roadblock, the criminal gang had put a log across the road and threw burning tires on top of the log,” he said.
“When police arrived at the roadblock and slowed down, they opened fire on them.
“Police were able to clear the road after exchanging shots with the gang for around 10 minutes and proceeded but ran into a second roadblock at Waighani.
“The same thing happened, they were fired on and police exchanged shots with them, cleared the road and went on to the mini mart.
“By then the gang had taken all the goods inside the mart and had loaded them on two vehicles.
“They were about to load the safe box when police arrived, again, shots were exchanged and the gang left everything there, including the two vehicles loaded with stolen goods and ran away.”
Barkie said there were nearly 50 of them and he was surprised that there was also a substantial number of women involved.
“Since then we received reports that a number of the gang members were injured and a couple of them have died from their injuries,” he said.
Barkie said that he had a copy of the footage from that night and police were able to identify some of them and would be bringing them in for questioning this week.