Australia Reels from Worst Mass Shooting in Over 20 Years

Australia Reels from Worst Mass Shooting in Over 20 Years

At least four people were in killed in the first mass shooting Australia has seen since 1996.

At least four people were killed and several more injured in the city of Darwin, Australia when a gunman went on a rampage with a pump-action shotgun late Tuesday night in several locations, according to police.

The suspect was apprehended soon after the shooting spree, and was identified as a 45-year-old local who was on parole at the time.

While the motive for the attack is currently unknown, police say they do not believe it was terror-related. The suspect, according to police, might have been looking for a specific person. 

The incident marks the worst mass shooting for Australia since the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, which resulted in the country overhauling its gun laws. Since the 1996 massacre, the worst shooting in the country had been an incident last year in which a grandfather had killed his entire family and himself.

Police confirmed that the weapon, a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun, "may have been stolen as far back as 1997." Authorities will now spend time trying to understand how the shooter acquired his weapon and any motivations that he might have had for the attack. 

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the incident as a "terrible act of violence" and said his thoughts were with citizens of the Northern Territory "and the tight-knit community in Darwin."



About the Author

Sydny Shepard is the Executive Editor of Campus Security & Life Safety.

Featured

New Products

  • Luma x20

    Luma x20

    Snap One has announced its popular Luma x20 family of surveillance products now offers even greater security and privacy for home and business owners across the globe by giving them full control over integrators’ system access to view live and recorded video. According to Snap One Product Manager Derek Webb, the new “customer handoff” feature provides enhanced user control after initial installation, allowing the owners to have total privacy while also making it easy to reinstate integrator access when maintenance or assistance is required. This new feature is now available to all Luma x20 users globally. “The Luma x20 family of surveillance solutions provides excellent image and audio capture, and with the new customer handoff feature, it now offers absolute privacy for camera feeds and recordings,” Webb said. “With notifications and integrator access controlled through the powerful OvrC remote system management platform, it’s easy for integrators to give their clients full control of their footage and then to get temporary access from the client for any troubleshooting needs.”

  • Hanwha QNO-7012R

    Hanwha QNO-7012R

    The Q Series cameras are equipped with an Open Platform chipset for easy and seamless integration with third-party systems and solutions, and analog video output (CVBS) support for easy camera positioning during installation. A suite of on-board intelligent video analytics covers tampering, directional/virtual line detection, defocus detection, enter/exit, and motion detection.

  • Camden CV-7600 High Security Card Readers

    Camden CV-7600 High Security Card Readers

    Camden Door Controls has relaunched its CV-7600 card readers in response to growing market demand for a more secure alternative to standard proximity credentials that can be easily cloned. CV-7600 readers support MIFARE DESFire EV1 & EV2 encryption technology credentials, making them virtually clone-proof and highly secure.