6 killed, including 2 officers, after ambush in Australia

Six people, including two police officers, were shot and killed amid a suspected ambush at a remote property in Australia, police said Tuesday.

The violence kicked off on Monday around 4:45 p.m. local time, shortly after officers arrived at the property in Wieambilla, located about 168 miles west of Brisbane, Queensland. They responded to the scene in search of a missing person and former school principal Nathaniel Train, but were instead met with gunfire upon their arrival, BBC News reported.

Two of the responding officers, 26-year-old Matthew Arnold and 29-year-old Rachel McCrow, were fatally struck as they approached a home on the property. Another officer suffered a “bullet graze” while a fourth escaped without injury, Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll said, adding it was a miracle the pair had survived and that one was able to request backup.

After an hours-long siege — which included “many weapons” — all three suspects were dead from fatal gunshot wounds, among them Train, who was last seen at his Dubbo home on December 16, 2021 and reported missing on December 4, according to Yahoo Australia. Trains’ brother, Gareth, and his wife, Stacey, both of them suspects in the shooting, were also killed in the gunfire exchange.

Carroll said 16 officers risked their lives retrieving the bodies of the killed officers, all of them unaware at that point if their colleagues were alive or dead.

A neighbor, 58-year-old Alan Dare, was also killed after going over to investigate the chaos.

“It is an unimaginable tragedy,” Carroll said. “This has been incredibly distressing and tragic for everyone, particularly family, officers involved, colleagues, the organization and the community.”

She said it had been many years since multiple police officers from the Queensland service were killed during a single incident.

“To lose two officers in one incident is absolutely devastating,” she said.

Authorities said it is still too early in the investigation to confirm whether police were lured to the property.

With News Wire Services