Crystal Brook shooting: Cop stabber’s history of conflict

Arriving for a standard dog complaint, two police officers were viciously stabbed and a man was killed. And that man had a history of clashes.

• ‘Thoughts are with them’: Stabbed officers’ condition update

A knife-wielding coward abused locals outside a Crystal Brook food store, bought a Lotto ticket and then went home only to burst out of his back door and stab two police officers.

Sean Scott Francis Ferris, 52, had been hurling four-letter words outside Foodland after locals raised issue with his dog, prompting brevet sergeants Ian Todd, 53 and Jordan Allely, 32, to pay him a visit on Wednesday morning.

Sgt Todd went to the back door and Sgt Allely went to the front of the ramshackle home.

In horrifying scenes, the younger officer reached the back door to find his colleague on the ground bleeding from an arterial wound in his neck and a menacing, bearded Ferris still armed with a blade. One of the officers fired at Ferris, striking him, but a bullet wound could not hold back a ferocious Ferris, who had a history of hindering police and disobeying Covid directions.

Ferris turned the knife on the younger sergeant, stabbing him in the arm and leg. He was shot again and the wounded Ferris managed to shuffle back into the house, where he collapsed and died.

Jordan Allely has been identified as one of the officers injured in an incident at Crystal Brook. Picture: Police Journal

Brevet Sergeant Ian Todd, 53 years, from Port Germein. Picture; Facebook

Police Commissioner Grant Stevens paid tribute to a hero neighbour who raced to the backyard to provide first aid to Sgt Todd, who was flown to Royal Adelaide Hospital in a critical condition with life-threatening injuries.

The officer was in hours of surgery on Wednesday night to try to repair arterial damage and it was unclear if he would survive.

Sgt Allely, officer in charge at Crystal Brook station, was treated at Port Pirie hospital before he was flown by the Royal Flying Doctor Service to Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Locals left tributes for the pair at the police station, including a child who left a message “thanks for being cops”.

It is understood the officers were attending the Crystal Brook house over a domestic complaint about the occupant’s dog, a husky called Buddy, that had been ongoing.

The Advertiser obtained footage of Ferris arguing about the dog in town on Tuesday. His final action was to buy a Lotto ticket in town, hours before he was to die.

Ferris, 52, was arrested on November 1, 2021 for refusing to wear a mask during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. He would later claim to have had an exemption but eventually pleaded guilty to the charge.

Sean Ferris was shot to death by the police he attacked at Crystal Brook. Picture: Facebook

On the same date and at Crystal Brook, Ferris was arrested for assault and disorderly behaviour. Four days later, on November 5, 2021, he was charged with hindering police.

Ferris continued through the courts for more than six months before police prosecutors dropped the assault charge and Ferris pleaded guilty to breaching covid restrictions, disorderly behaviour and hinder police.

He was ordered to pay costs and had no further penalty imposed after the magistrate took into account the time he had spent in custody following his arrest.

A local shop owner who did not wish to be identified said Ferris had been in to buy his weekly lotto ticket on Wednesday morning before the attack occurred.

The shop owner said “the man’s dog had been the subject of complaints by people in the town for some time”.

“It was a very aggressive dog, both in his front yard and when it was tied up out the front of shops in the main street,” the shop owner said.

“I actually felt sorry for the dog because it would get quite anxious when it was tied up.”

The shop owner said Ferris did not work and had been a resident for “about five years, maybe longer”.

Police outside a home at Symons St, Crystal Brook where two police officers were stabbed and a person shot and killed. Picture: Brenton Edwards

“He kept to himself, when he came into the shop he was always very pleasant and polite,” the shop owner said.

Major Crime detectives, the forensic response section and the internal investigation section – with Police Commissioner Stevens – flew to the scene during the afternoon.

Ferris’ death will be investigated by Major Crime detectives under established protocols, due to the nature of the shooting. Ferris seemed happy and chatty before he stabbed the police, according to witness reports.

Another Crystal Brook shop worker called Chloe said she had just served the offender before the incident unfolded.

“I served him probably just over half an hour before the incident took place … I’m in shock,” she told FIVEaa.

A gift and note left at Crystal Brook Police Station. Picture: Brenton Edwards

“It was just a normal interaction with him. He has come in the past a few times a bit on edge after a few incidents with his dog but this was just a normal morning and he seemed very happy and we were just chatting about the rain and how it takes him so long to dry his dog because of how big he is.

“Not long after we found out there was a siege down the street where he lived.”

“It was pretty scary and hard to hear – these things don’t happen in your small country town very often. We serve him daily, it’s not nice to hear.”

Another worker at the shop said the man used to have two dogs but one had passed away, which perhaps had led to the surviving husky becoming anxious and howling when tied up on the main street.

It is the second such tragedy for the nation’s police force, which in December 2022 lost two officers at a shoot out in a property at Wieambilla, south of Chinchilla in Queensland.

Police shot the three attackers dead during that ambush.

The killers – one a respected school principal – who executed two police officers and their innocent neighbour in the bloody ambush were driven by bizarre conspiracy theories and had written anti-vaccination posts online.