ANZAC Day long weekend has been marred by alcohol-fuelled violence after a one-punch attack left a young man unconscious as a 15-person brawl broke out around him at a Wagga taxi rank.
It comes as another man involved in a separate incident at a second taxi rank fights for his life in a Sydney hospital.
Wagga police are calling for witnesses into the brutal one-punch attack that was triggered by an altercation over a taxi at the Gurwood Street rank about 12.20am Monday.
Acting Inspector Roy Elmes said a 22-year-old Wagga man was providing “verbal assistance” to a group of people when another man approached him from behind and punched him once to the back of the head.
“He’s fallen to ground, where he remained for some time, about two to three minutes,” Inspector Elmes said.
“The offender immediately after punching runs away from the immediate scene. It can only be described as a coward’s punch in our view.”
Trouble continued to unfold as the victim laid unconscious on the ground and a melee of 15 people ensued for 10 minutes.
A taxi driver reported the incident but the man had been put into a taxi by friends and taken to hospital with a lost tooth and suspected broken nose by the time police arrived.
He was discharged from hospital about 8am Monday.
Police are now searching for any information on the offender. He is described as aged between 18 and 25, of thin build and average height, with blonde hair.
Inspector Elmes condemned the attack and warned that under new coward punch laws, the maximum penalty is 25 years’ imprisonment.
“The community looks at it like it looks at murder,” he said. “Fortunately I think we’ve escaped a bullet quite a number of times.”
Police then responded to a second altercation near Station Place taxi rank about 10.50pm Monday.
Inspector Elmes said a 26-year-old man “appears to have been the main instigator” in a three-person incident, which saw him rushed to hospital with severe concussion. He was placed in an induced coma and later airlifted to St George Hospital mid-morning on Tuesday.
A hospital spokesman confirmed the man remained in a critical but stable condition. Inspector Elmes said the man was both the suspect and victim, and was “not assisting police with our inquiries in relation to that”.