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| Down Under | |
| Aussie rules football brawl | |
| 2009-11-09 | |
Police feared for their safety when they turned up to a disturbance at a sporting field on Groote Eylandt to discover it had escalated to a full scale brawl. The brawl, involving several hundred people, some of them armed with axes and spears, broke out about 5pm (CST) on Sunday at the Angurugu sports oval during an AFL match.
Northern Territory Police have been unable to confirm how many people were directly engaged in the brawl, but Superintendent Brent Warren said there were about 500 people in the area when police arrived. "A number of those people were armed with axes and spears and a large number were involved in hostile and aggressive behaviour, which was later directed at police," he said. "The guys (officers) that attended were concerned for their own safety and obviously the safety of at least one man who had already been injured. "As you can imagine, even when a number of police cars turn up, when you've got a crowd that's potentially 500-strong, it's difficult to take proactive action at the time. "That's why we tend to respond to these kind of incidents by doing the follow-up investigation the next day and taking action against individuals we can identify later on." No arrests have been made, but Supt Warren said police would lay charges in the near future. "Police are confident they have identified some of the people involved," he said. | |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #6 "And this differs from a normal match how?" You can't carry weapons into a football match. That's an automatic 50 metre penalty. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2009-11-09 17:19 |
| #5 Is THIS The reason Aussies want women on the front lines? (snark) |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2009-11-09 13:02 |
| #4 And this differs from a normal match how? |
| Posted by: Helmuth, Speaking for Angutle7853 2009-11-09 12:41 |
| #3 These days a lot of traditional business is done during football carnivals, and axes and spears can assist in the doing, for sure. The feud probably pre-dated the disputed free kick, by years, or centuries, or even a millenium or two. Groote Eylandt can be a bit tense. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2009-11-09 12:10 |
| #2 aussie football, almost as rowdy as world cup soccer |
| Posted by: 746 2009-11-09 09:56 |
| #1 Tribes. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-11-09 09:42 |