An armed would-be bag snatcher was killed by police bullets, and three innocent pedestrians and a sikh police constable were slightly wounded at 10 am. yesterday, in a running gun-battle which got under way When Sergt, A. W: Nicoll, who was riding police mi in an easterly direction along Nanking Road at the time, saw how the criminal was attempting to relieve a Chinese woman of her bag as she was crossing from South to North immediately in front of Sincere's Department Store.
Applying his brakes, Sergt Nicoll dashed towards the man who by then was already in possession of the bag. On seeing the police officer behind him, the criminal dropped the bag and drew an automatic pistol from his left sleeve.
It did not take Sergt. Nicoll long to draw his weapon and, together with traffic constables on duty at the Kin Wo Ka and Kwangse Road intersections, he gave chase, opening fire after the criminal had fired several shots in their direction.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.