Two Chinese detective constables were shot and lightly wounded yesterday afternoon in an engagement with suspects whom they had encountered in a Louza district hotel.
The suspects escaped.
The two detectives, C.D.C. 72 and C.D.C. 124, were members of a raiding party led by Det. Sub-Insp. W. G. Smith in a general raid in Cheking Road. The foreign officer and four Chinese detectives entered the Lo Tung Faung Hotel, 245 Chekiang Road, at 4 p.m. and started to search for suspects. Ori the first floor they arrested three young Chinese, in two rooms. In the first-floor passageway, one of the suspects suddenly produced a pistol and started firing at the police.
Eight shots were discharged in rapid succession by the gunman, and two of the bullets struck two Chinese detectives. One constable was wounded in the left wrist and another in the arm. The police had no got a chance to return fire, and the three suspects escaped by running down the stairway and out into the street.
A call was sent for an ambulance and the two wounded men were taken io the Police Hospital. Last night one of them remained in hospital, while the other had been discharged. Neither of them had suffered serious injury.
The pistol used in the shooting was a.32-calibre automat Apparently it had not figured in any other recent crime here.
Descriptions of the three suspects were broadcast last night to all police stations, and a city-wide search was started for them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.