Police, lord mayor hit out at ‘boofheads’ behind Perth Australia Day brawls

Perth’s Lord Mayor has hit out at the “boofheads” who were involved in two large brawls in the city on Australia Day.
Basil Zempilas said people who engaged in the violent behaviour are not welcome in the city following the two incidents, which required a significant police response.

“If you’re not capable of coming into the city, if you can’t handle your alcohol involved with other illicit substances, get out of the city,” he said.

“There’s no place for it – nobody has any tolerance for it.”

Seven arrests were made during the incident, and no officers were harmed in the first riot (Nine)

Police arrested several people after a drunken 150-person brawl broke out in the CBD on Thursday night.

The fight started between transit officers and a small crowd of people at Perth train station just after 10pm, before the crowd quickly grew to 150.

Police arrived at the scene at 10:50pm, when the large crowd turned on them, allegedly throwing glass bottles and rocks at officers.

“We had a small group fighting amongst themselves to start with, police went to the assistance of the transport officers and that quickly grew to numbers of 150 fighting,” assistant police commissioner Brad Royce said.

“There was pretty poor behaviour from members of that crowd… we cleared it up fairly quickly.”

Seven arrests were made during the incident, and no officers were harmed.

Perth’s Lord Mayor has hit out at the “boofheads” who were involved in two large brawls in the city on Australia Day. (Nine)

Three hours later, at 1:30am, police were called to a second brawl in East Perth.

This time, the crowd had armed themselves with bricks and broken pavers and flung them at the attending officers. Police say one person was armed with a tomahawk when they arrived and was arrested “fairly quickly”.

Two officers were injured and were taken to hospital in the second brawl, one with a minor face injury and the other with a dislocated shoulder.

Today, Zempilas made it clear that it was not the same crowd who enjoyed the family fireworks show at Langley Park.

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“The people who went to Langley Park were magnificent they enjoyed a great show – they had a great night,” he said.

“The people who were in the city later carrying on like boofheads – had no connection no relation to the Langley Park event.”

Multiple arrests were made at both riots, and some charges are expected.

Police say the violent behaviour towards police was not part of any group or political protests. 

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