By Perry Duffin
Two 15-year-old boys were allegedly recruited by Sydney’s warring gangland and carried out shootings on separate Sydney homes, with bullets narrowly missing women and children lying in their beds.
Police have warned teenagers being swept up in crime that they and their families will be hunted by gangsters seeking revenge if the law didn’t catch them first.
In the early hours of Saturday, March 22, a semi-automatic rifle rattled off almost 30 shots into a home on Crossland Street in Merrylands.
A woman was inside the home with her four children, aged between six months and five years. The bullets travelled through the bedrooms and bedheads, one missing a five-year-old boy by just 20 centimetres.
A threatening note was left at the scene. Police believe it was intended for members of an organised crime gang. But the family inside were innocents, and investigators soon confirmed the home was once occupied by people linked to one of Sydney’s gangs.
A Nissan X-Trail, stolen last September, was found burnt out in South Granville and linked to the shooting.
Three weeks later, just after 2am on April 16, 15 shots from a handgun were fired into a granny flat on Faulds Road in Guildford West. The woman inside, 26, who has a relationship with a member of a gang, was uninjured.
A Hyundai Tucson was later found burned out on Birmingham Avenue in Villawood.
Taskforce Falcon, established after a spate of public shootings involving members of the city’s feuding underworld, took over the investigation into the two attacks.
Mobile footage shows the fire on Chiswick Road, South Granville in March.Credit: Nine News
Falcon’s investigators zeroed in and allegedly discovered a 15-year-old boy was the gunman at both shootings.
A second 15-year-old boy also played a role in the Merrylands attack, police claim.
Just after midnight, heavily armed police caught the boy in Condell Park and took him to Bankstown station, where he was charged with two counts of firing a gun at a home as part of organised crime.
He was also charged with four counts of damaging property with fire, participating in a criminal group and driving a stolen car.
Bullet holes at the Merrylands home targeted in the shooting.Credit: Nine News
The boy was on bail at the time, and was charged with a breach.
The second 15-year-old was charged on Wednesday morning with similar offences.
Falcon commander Jason Box said the children being swept into organised crime were “putting themselves and their families at risk”.
“They are committing these offences on behalf of organised crime networks – they will retaliate,” Box said at a press conference on Wednesday.
The scene of the burnt-out car at Chiswick Road, South Granville, in March.Credit: Archie Staines
Children and young people are being recruited through encrypted group chats to carry out attacks in the underworld in part because they are cheap, the Herald reported in May following the suspected mistaken-identity murder of tradie John Versace.
“The fact [underworld gangs] have got access to these juveniles, the fact that these juveniles are willing to commit these offences – we strongly believe that they do not understand what they’re getting involved in,” Box said.
“This is not a game.
“They could have effectively killed five people.”
Box said the mother whose child narrowly escaped death is “extremely traumatised”.
“They’ve got to live with that and, I have no doubt, she’ll be affected by this for the rest of her life.”
Both teenagers will appear in children’s court on Wednesday.
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