Brawl erupts after 'racial comments'

Timaru police have had to intervene in a daylight brawl between two groups of youths wielding baseball bats and pipes thought to be sparked by racist comments.

Witnesses to the clash at the south end of Stafford St yesterday reported a group of Asians waving baseball bats and lengths of metal pipes and a group of European teens driving off while one older Asian man was on the bonnet of their Subaru Legacy.

The brawl followed an incident the previous evening in which offensive racist comments were allegedly made to a group of Asian teenagers.

"Two of them [Asians] were in school uniform and an adult was with them. One had two baseball bats, [and was] flinging them around like bloody chopsticks," a witness said.

He said as soon as the youth with the baseball bats appeared everything escalated. "It was just like a rat's nest being disturbed by a fox terrier, they were going everywhere."

Another witness said he had seen "an older Asian guy" standing by the Legacy, arguing with the occupants.

"He was holding on to the windscreen wiper and a schoolboy, with a Timaru Boys' High School blazer, ran out with a couple of bats."

The witness went inside a business, but came back out again, worried about what he had seen.

He said when he looked again, the youth with the baseball bats was walking back where he had come from, but the older Asian man was on the bonnet.

"He was holding on to the roof racks, standing on the bonnet while they were going quite fast down King St."

A couple from the group of European youths spoke to The Herald near the site of the incident.

One was in a neighbouring business at the time the commotion occurred and came out to see the person climb on the bonnet of the car.

"I told the boys to drive the car [while he was on the bonnet]," he said.

He shrugged off The Herald's question of whether he had considered the person on the bonnet could have been killed had they fallen off the moving car.

"Nah, well, he was going to smash the front windscreen.

"What else are you meant to do? Let him smash it?"

A girl he was with, who said she was with White Power, said the episode stemmed from the previous night when the Asian and the European group had a fight.

Police are still considering what charges will be laid against the seven questioned about yesterday's incident.

That incident occurred after an adult recognised three teenagers sitting in a vehicle as those who allegedly made offensive racial remarks and gestures to his nephew and others on Stafford St on Thursday night, police said last night.

The three boys, aged 14 and 17, were sitting in a vehicle when the man approached them.

A confrontation ensued and a window of the vehicle was smashed before it drove off with the adult on the bonnet.

Police have now spoken to all of those involved.

- © Fairfax NZ News