22 March 1921   Shooting at Riverton

On 22 March 1921 a man fired a volley of shots at passengers on the platform at Riverton station. The man, a Russian named Koormah Tomayeff, was travelling on the train from Broken Hill to Adelaide. The train stopped at Riverton for breakfast and as the passengers were about to board again he pulled a pistol out and began firing erratically, forcing people to run for cover. Percy Brookfield, an MP in the NSW parliament, together with the local policeman, approached the man who raised his pistol and shot Brookfield in the abdomen. The policeman was able to grapple with the man, somebody else struck him with a rifle butt, and he was disarmed and arrested.

As well as Brookfield, three men and a woman were also wounded. Brookfield died in Adelaide the following day and a week later one of the other wounded passengers died. Tomayeff was not tried for the offence, he was certified insane and committed to an asylum.

Advertiser, 23 March 1921, p.9.
Police Journal, June 1975, Newspaper Cuttings Book, Volume 3, p. 173 SLSA