Six people died, including two police officers in their 20s, when a routine missing-persons investigation escalated into an hours-long siege of a remote Australian property, police said.
Four officers arrived at a tree-lined property near the town of Wieambilla late Monday afternoon.
“As soon as they entered the property, they were inundated with gunfire. They never had a chance. Two police officers were executed in cold blood,” said Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers, reports RTE.
The deceased have been identified as Rachel McCrow, 26, and Matthew Arnold, 29. Both joined the force within the last two years and were still cops.
A 58-year-old neighbor who heard the commotion and investigated the scene was also shot and “declared deceased at the scene,” police said.
Two other officers survived the attack and were taken to hospital with minor injuries.
One of the survivors was Officer Keeley Brough, who texted her loved ones in desperation as suspects attempted to retrieve her from the surrounding scrubland where she was hiding, local media reported.
She was only a police officer for eight weeks, officials said.
Aerial photos of the scene showed a nondescript zinc-roofed bungalow, a burned-out vehicle and smoke still billowing around the property.
After an initial exchange of fire, a specialized team of over a dozen airborne officers rushed to the scene.
As of 10:30 p.m. local time, two suspected men and a woman were dead after hours of siege.
Police did not reveal the suspects’ identities, but officers are believed to have been searching for a former elementary school principal who went missing late last year.
Local media reported that the property was in the name of the missing man’s brother and sister-in-law.
The brother is believed to have been a regular poster for conspiracy theory websites, railing against “secret societies” and shadowy intelligence agencies conducting “(false) flag operations.”
The investigation into the incident and the handling of the situation by the police are ongoing.
Mass shootings are rare in Australia, which has some of the toughest gun laws in the world.
The ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons has been in place since a 1996 mass shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in which a gunman killed 35 people.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called Wieambilla’s scenes “terrible”.
Queensland officials have ordered flags to be flown at half-mast inside government buildings.
It is with a heavy heart we confirm the deaths of Constable Matthew Arnold and Constable Rachel McCrow.
Their lives were cut tragically short in the line of duty at Wieambilla yesterday.
With Honour They Served. pic.twitter.com/XIahH0zGUX
— Queensland Police (@QldPolice) December 12, 2022
Tell us your thoughts in the Facebook post and share this with your friends.