Police detonate device inside Brisbane home after two suburbs locked down
New details have been revealed about what set off a siege that locked down streets in two Brisbane suburbs and ended with specialist police detonating a suspicious device in a house.
Police & Courts
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A dispute in a Brisbane home is believed to have triggered a dramatic siege involving explosives that ended when police used mobile phone data to track the accused, who remains under police guard in hospital today.
Suburban streets in two Brisbane suburbs were yesterday afternoon plunged into lockdown that ended with a suspicious device being detonated by police inside a Wooloowin house.
The chaos unfolded when police located suspicious devices at the Hamley St home in Wooloowin, on Brisbane’s northside, about 1pm.
It’s understood the items of concern were found by people at the Wooloowin house following a dispute with a 42-year-old Capalaba man. Police were then called.
Queensland Police Service Acting Inspector Mark Muller said once the Queensland Police Service gained access to the home, officers located a plastic tub with “devices that aroused (police) suspicion.”
The hours that followed would see hundreds of Brisbane residents forced to stay indoors, while a siege situation involving highly trained and heavily armoured police unfolded with the 42-year-old man.
Specialist Queensland Police from the Explosive Ordinance Response Team would, within minutes of police locating the suspicious devices inside the Wooloowin home, attend the property and later declare an emergency situation.
The Public Safety and Preservation Act (PSPA) - which is enacted only in the event the health and safety of the community may be under immediate threat- was made by Queensland Police just after 4pm, and ensured residents within the 100 metres surrounding Hamley St, Adamson St and Kedron St remained inside.
While specialist police crews, assisted with highly skilled firefighters from the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services’ scientific analysis team, remained on site, another emergency situation was unfolding some 12km away.
About 3.20pm police used mobile phone data to track the 42-year-old man, who was at the time believed to be in possession of explosives, to Rome St in Coorparoo, in Brisbane’s south.
This time, an active and rapidly evolving emergency situation would see residents in eight Coorparoo streets - Stanley St East, Tiber St, Halifax St, Milsom St, Adina St, Norman Ave, Rome St and Thackery St - stuck inside their homes.
Police used megaphones to communicate with residents the urgency of the situation, directing locals to stay inside, while two police helicopters circled the area.
The ringing of multiple sirens could be heard from two suburbs away in Annerley as the PSPA unfolded.
Queensland Police officers from the Special Emergency Response Team (SERT) - called in only for the most hostile of situations- were at the scene, as Rome St became a makeshift police operations hub.
The tense situation lasted for about one hour in Coorparoo, with at least one family stuck on separate sides of the exclusion zone.
One woman told The Courier-Mail at the scene her 12-year-old daughter was home alone inside the restricted area.
“We went for a walk and when we came back we couldn’t get in,” the girl’s mother said.
“She didn’t even know when we called her.”
At about 4.20pm, the man exited his car, where he surrendered to police and was taken into custody without incident.
It is understood police used specialist robotic equipment to examine the vehicle for suspicious objects before sending their teams closer.
Police were unable to confirm what the suspicious objects inside the vehicle were.
The PSPA would remain in place in Coorparoo until late Tuesday night, before police revoked the order after determining there was no remaining threat to the public.
However, in Brisbane’s north, crews were still working to determine the contents of the plastic tub located in the Wooloowin home.
At 8.30pm, an officer warned locals that they had discovered a safe inside the property, which they were trying to access.
Within 10 minutes, an explosion was heard.
Police later confirmed it was a controlled detonation.
Fire crews left the scene at Wooloowin about 10.30pm but police, including the bomb squad, remained on site overnight.
The Wooloowin PSPA was also lifted late on Tuesday night.
Neighbours of the 42-year-old man, who on Wednesday remained in the Princess Alexandra Hospital under police guard, told The Courier-Mail he was not a long term resident of the Wooloowin property, and that he had been coming and going for some months.
One neighbour claimed the man drove a four-wheel-drive with fake police sirens.
“There wasn’t nothing too suspicious about them though. We had assumed he might be an older boyfriend, but we weren’t suspicious,” he said.
“The only thing was that they would fight a lot, always about mundane things and really loud.”
Other neighbours said that the occupants of the household mostly kept to themselves.
As of 9am Wednesday - about 20 hours after chaos gripped parts of Brisbane - the man at the centre of the tense police operation has still not been charged.
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