Two eyewitnesses have given dramatic accounts of the violence in Rastrick which included an alleged machete attack in which one person was wounded.
Armed police officers were called to St John Street, opposite St John’s The Divine Church at 2pm on Sunday.
One man said: “The trouble started at 11.30am when I heard a commotion going off. It sounded like someone was kicking a door though it didn’t last long.
“My wife and I were in the back garden at the time. I didn’t go to investigate as it can be a bit ‘choice’ down that end of the street.
“Then later that afternoon we heard it kicking off again. We both came out and I could see a small white car with its windscreen in the process of being smashed up.
“There was a tall, skinny lad shouting a lot of expletives. He was kicking at the white car before turning his attentions to the Ford Transit van. He started laying into that with a child’s scooter and smashing its windscreen with it and its panels.
“Then he seemed to disappear but the police armed response unit arrived and officers suddenly began chasing after him.”
His neighbour, Lesley Hartley, a cleaner at the church, and who has lived on the street for nearly 40 years, said: “I was just doing a bit of weeding when I heard it all kicking off. I saw this one man trying to pull this other person out of a car. He was shouting at him to get out.
“Then I saw him attacking this man with what looked like some kind of a knife, there was some blood and an awful lot of people around, it was mayhem out there. That’s when I phoned the police.
“It has been a quiet street until the last couple of years.”
A woman on nearby Laura Street said the victim lived in Wakefield.
Later that day armed police were called to a house in Wyke, near Bradford. Police were given information that led them to an address in Angus Avenue.
Officers carried out a search of the premises.
Residents reported a heavy police presence in Angus Avenue, which is off Whitehall Road, with several marked and unmarked police cars in attendance.
The Examiner has asked West Yorkshire Police for a statement.
