Category Archives: Wieambilla shooting

NSW police had emails that could have saved lives at Wieambilla, inquest hears

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Queensland police weren’t warned of threats to law enforcement made by Trains before shooting, hearing told

Queensland police weren’t warned of emails threatening law enforcement sent by the perpetrators of the Wieambilla shooting because the New South Wales officer who asked them to attend the remote rural property didn’t read the emails until it was too late, an inquest has heard.

Detective Senior Constable Tim Montgomery, who testified on day 14 of an inquest by the Queensland state coroner Terry Ryan into the Wieambilla shootings, was assigned with tracking down Nathaniel Train.

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Madness and murder: how the Trains brought terror to Wieambilla

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Inquest reveals how Gareth Train went from ‘keyboard warrior’ to killer, and radicalised his wife and brother

Gareth Train was, by many accounts, a deeply unimpressive and unpleasant person.

He was arrogant, prone to anger and had low self-esteem. He was paranoid, narcissistic and emotionally primitive, the Queensland coroner’s court heard this week. One witness described him as a “keyboard warrior”; he believed in baseless conspiracy theories so strongly they took over his life, the inquest heard.

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Wieambilla killer’s ‘incredibly disturbing’ emails sent to police before massacre, inquest hears

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Close associate of Nathaniel Train tells Queensland coroner’s court they forwarded emails to NSW police hours before deadly shootings

A close associate of one of the Wieambilla killers forwarded four “incredibly disturbing” emails from his account to New South Wales police hours before the Train family gunned down three people in Queensland, a coronial inquest has heard.

The emails were not passed on to Queensland police before they sent four officers to 251 Wains Rd, Wieambilla for a missing persons’ search, two of whom would be killed by Nathaniel, Gareth and Stacey Train, the court heard.

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Wieambilla killers ‘rocked’ police vehicle with bullets in response to surrender pleas, inquest hears

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The Trains used high-calibre guns to engage in firefight as police tried to negotiate, responder tells coroner

A family of killers were “robotic” in response to efforts to get them to surrender, continuing to fire at police vehicles, an inquest into the Wieambilla massacre has heard.

Sert operative 114, a team leader of the police Special Emergency Response Team (Sert), described how an armoured BearCat vehicle was “rocked” as a volley of accurate gunfire hit the windscreen, which was bullet resistant but not bulletproof.

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Wieambilla shootout ‘most dangerous operation’ Queensland specialist police have ever undertaken, inquest hears

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Train family had ‘intense motivation to kill police’ and were highly prepared for shooting ambush, state coroner told

The final shootout between police and three radicalised murderers at a remote property near Wieambilla was the most dangerous operation ever undertaken by Queensland’s specialist tactical police, an inquest into the deadly ambush has heard.

Supt Tim Partridge, who now runs the Special Emergency Response Team (Sert), said the task would have been less risky if police had access to superior tactics such as the use of a sniper from a helicopter, and more reliable communications.

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Terror in Wieambilla: inquest hears of a radio blackspot, booby traps and ‘fatal funnel’ of gunfire

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Distressing details emerge about what happened when two young police officers were shot dead in an ambush by the Trains in December 2022

None of the four Queensland police officers were older than 30, but the horrors they were about to experience at 251 Wains Road would shock even the most hardened cop.

They’d been sent to the remote area of Wieambilla, halfway between Chinchilla and Tara, in south-eastern Queensland, to find a missing person. It was in the middle of a known radio blackspot, with residents so off the grid some of them laid booby traps.

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‘Running for her life’: how police rescued trapped officer from Wieambilla ambush

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Rescue team members tell inquest they devised a code to guide Const Keely Brough to safety, drawing gunfire as they blocked property entrance

The leader of a police extraction team sent to rescue trapped constable Keely Brough from the Wieambilla ambush has told an inquest of the moment he saw the officer emerge from scrub “running for her life” to escape the property.

An inquest on Friday heard evidence from several officers involved in the rescue attempt, which was launched while shooters Gareth, Stacey and Nathaniel Train were nearby and considered “active armed offenders”.

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‘We could have all been dead’: Wieambilla shooting survivor blames police for failing to warn of danger

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Survivor Victor Lewis and victim Alan Dare’s widow Kerry demand changes and accountability in testimony to Queensland inquest

A survivor of the Wieambilla massacre whose friend was shot and killed while standing next to him has demanded answers about why police failed to warn of the danger.

Victor Lewis travelled to the property with his friend Alan Dare to investigate a fire, and was standing shoulder to shoulder with Dare when he was shot and killed.

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New details of Wieambilla police shootings revealed in case of US conspiracy theorist Donald Day Jr

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Premillennialism advocate who has pleaded not guilty to five federal charges in Arizona allegedly posted videos saying family who killed officers were ‘martyrs’

An American man allegedly told the family who fatally shot two Australian police officers he sent his “comfort and assurance” before they died in a gunfight with a tactical response team.

United States prosecutors have unveiled new details about the December 2022 shootings at Wieambilla, west of Brisbane, as part of their case against Arizona man Donald Day Jr.

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US man linked to Wieambilla shootings claims right to own guns despite criminal history

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Donald Day Jr, linked to fatal shooting of two Queensland police officers, claims his right to guns for self-defence has been violated

A US man linked to the fatal shooting of two Queensland police officers has claimed that his right to own guns for self-defence has been violated by charges of alleged firearms possession while a convicted felon.

Donald Day Jr, 58, was arrested in December 2023 by the FBI in Arizona on two counts of “interstate threats” 12 months after the fatal shootings at rural Wieambilla, west of Brisbane.

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Wieambilla shootings inspired ‘true threats’ against public figures by accused US man, court hears

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Donald Day Jr made serious threats to kill others after allegedly encouraging deadly Queensland shootings, prosecutors say

An American conspiracy theorist arrested in connection to religiously motivated shootings by an Australian family in Queensland later used the killings to bolster his alleged threats against public figures, United States prosecutors have said.

Donald Day Jr, 58, was arrested in December 2023 by the FBI in Arizona on two counts of “interstate threats” following the December 2022 fatal shootings in Wieambilla, Queensland.

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Wieambilla shooting: lawyers for Donald Day mount freedom-of-speech defence over alleged threats to police

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Arizona conspiracy theorist who was arrested in connection to Queensland terrorist attack seeking to have charges dismissed

A US conspiracy theorist linked to the Wieambilla shooters has argued he was not seriously expressing an intent for violence when he said “the devils come for us, they fucking die”, and as such should be protected by the US constitution’s first amendment.

Donald Day Jr, a conspiracy theorist in Arizona, was recently arrested by FBI agents in connection with last year’s religiously motivated terrorist attack on a remote Queensland property in Wieambilla.

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Australian firearms registry ‘one step closer’, with cabinet decision expected mid-year

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Renewed calls for database to track guns across the country sparked by fatal 2022 Wieambilla shooting

The creation of Australia’s first national firearms register “is one step closer to reality”, the attorney general Mark Dreyfus has declared.

Dreyfus made the remark after police ministers held an extraordinary meeting in Sydney on Monday, agreeing to launch public consultation for the register before a decision by national cabinet in mid-2023.

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Wieambilla shootings: killers’ daughter speaks out about their descent into world of conspiracies

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Madelyn Train talks publicly for the first time about their ‘evil’ final act and the last message she got from them

A woman whose parents killed two Queensland police officers and a neighbour before dying at a remote property has spoken for the first time about their descent into conspiracy theories and ultimately, violence.

Madelyn Train’s father, Nathaniel, mother, Stacey, and uncle Gareth were killed by police in the incident that left six people dead at Wieambilla last month.

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Tara shooting incident brings back Wieambilla memories for traumatised residents

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Four teenagers in custody after reports of shots fired in centre of Queensland town

Residents of Tara, in Queensland’s western downs, say a shooting incident on Wednesday afternoon has stoked trauma after last month’s murder of two police officers and a neighbour in nearby Wieambilla.

Four teenagers have been taken into custody after reports of shots being fired in the area at 3.30pm. Police declared an exclusion zone covering several blocks in the centre of town at 5.30pm.

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Experts question decision to not deem Queensland shooting ‘domestic terror’

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Police say there’s ‘nothing really to indicate’ that the Wieambilla shooting could be classified as terrorism

Experts have questioned why Queensland police have resisted classifying the murder of two police officers in Wieambilla as terrorism, amid evidence that the shooters had been inspired by fundamentalist Christianity and conspiracy theories.

Queensland deputy police commissioner Tracy Linford on Thursday said the murder of constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold on a remote property was not deemed an act of domestic terror because there was no evidence of a connection to any “particular group”.

“We are certainly not classing it as a domestic terror event. At this point there’s nothing really to indicate that,” Linford said.

“What we can see is sentiment displayed by the three individuals – the three Train family members – that appears anti-government, anti-police, conspiracy theorist-type things.

“But we can’t see them connected to any particular group that they might have been working with or inspired them to do anything. We haven’t located anything like that at this point in time.”

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Australian gun databases plagued by inconsistencies, Hoddle Street massacre detective says

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Graham Kent, who investigated the 1987 shooting, says national register stalled because of ‘competitions between jurisdictions’

A former police officer who investigated Melbourne’s Hoddle Street massacre has joined the push for a genuine national firearms register amid concerns about an existing database that experts says is hindered by inconsistencies between jurisdictions.

The deadly shooting of two young police officers and a neighbour on a remote Queensland property last week has sparked renewed calls for an overhaul of Australia’s firearms databases and the creation of a centralised register.

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Union fury over Labor decision to split aged care pay rises – as it happened

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Crossbench say Australia needs to ‘get cracking’ on Cop15 commitments

More reactions are coming in after the close of the biodiversity Cop15 – which leading scientists have called “vastly more important” than the Cop27 climate meeting, because it decides the “fate of the living world”.

We need to get cracking on implementation to deliver on commitments.

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US religious conspiracist linked to Queensland police killers Gareth and Stacey Train

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Australian couple behind Wieambilla attack were in regular contact with man with a similar fundamentalist theology

In the hours after Gareth Train and his wife, Stacey, murdered two police officers and wounded a third during a chilling, premeditated attack on their remote Queensland property this week, they posted a haunting video to YouTube.

“They came to kill us, and we killed them,” Gareth says, his face partly obscured in darkness.

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