Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner yesterday announced a review of every person subject to electronic monitoring after a man wearing one of the bracelets allegedly killed four people in an hour-long rampage through Darwin on Tuesday.
A day after the mass shooting, Northern Territory Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said police believe that the alleged gunman, a 45-year-old, was searching for someone when he carried out the murders using a stolen pump-action shotgun.
Multiple witnesses reported hearing the gunman yelling for a man named Alex during the shooting and yesterday, and Kershaw said police believed the shooter had been searching for specific targets.
He said at least one of the targets was interstate and that some of the victims might not have known the assailant.
“We’re not 100 percent sure and we’ve obviously got to interview that individual before he’s charged with murder,” Kershaw said.
“Initial indications [suggest] it may be that he was looking for certain individuals. One in particular we know was interstate and used to reside at a particular address, and that’s why we’ve undertaken that line of inquiry,” he added.
Kershaw said it was “correct” that some of the victims did not know the shooter.
“I can’t give you the exact figure, because we’re still trying to work out if there was a relationship there or they were known to each other, and that’s something we’re working on with the families and other people who are assisting us with our inquiries,” he said.
One of the victims of the shooting was Hassan Baydoun, 33, a taxi driver and recent university graduate originally from Lebanon who had been on a meal break at the Palms Motel in Darwin when he was killed.
His employer, Blue Taxis, said in a statement that it had lost one of its “long-term beloved drivers.”
“Our company is heartbroken and his colleagues are in a state of shock,” the company said.
“This is not what our city stands for. Someone shot having a meal break while going about their own business. We pray that we never have to witness anything like this ever again,” it said.
The suspected gunman had only been released from jail on parole in January after serving four years of a six-year sentence.
He has a long criminal history and was well-known to police, and Kershaw said he was believed to be an “associate” of an outlaw motorcycle gang.
Kershaw confirmed that the gunman had used a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun — a prohibited firearm — that might have been stolen as far back as 1997.
The suspect was wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet during the shooting.
Gunner said that the attacks had prompted a sweeping review of the parole board and everyone subject to electronic monitoring in Northern Territory.
“We’ve asked for a detailed report immediately from the parole review board into what happened with this alleged offender, and we have asked for everyone who is on parole and electronic monitoring to also be reviewed,” Gunner said.
“We’re not jumping to conclusions, but we are doing all the work we need to do to make sure Territorians are safe,” he said.
Police arrested the man on Tuesday night after an hour-long shooting, in which four men were killed and a woman was injured at four sites.
The first reports of a man firing shots came from the Palms Motel, where Baydoun was killed, just outside Darwin city center at about 5:50pm.
The others were killed shortly after at the nearby Buff Club, Gardens Hill Crescent in the inner city and an industrial site at Jolly Street in the suburb of Woolner.
Witness Leah Potter told the Today show that she had followed a police officer to the scene of the shooting at the motel.
“We followed him and the scene that we came across, I could not even believe that this could happen in Darwin,” she said. “A man had come through the Palms Motel and shot every window.”
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