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

• Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates
• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

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.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

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.”