Brian Lauer’s $1M gambling spree before violent hospital rampage
A man who left a note reading ‘BOMB’ on the front seat of his car before entering a Sydney hospital armed with a knife had just gambled away $1 million. Police shot the man to bring him down.
NSW
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A knife-wielding man who was shot by police at a major Sydney hospital that was sent into lockdown had gambled away $1 million before the incident.
Brian Lauer later insisted to police he did not want to hurt anyone when he accelerated his Nissan 4WD into the ambulance bay of Nepean Hospital and left a note saying “BOMB” in the front passenger seat last October.
Yelling and swinging two knives wildly in each hand, the 54-year-old left the 4WD and walked towards a “petrified” elderly woman before two police officers — who were already at the hospital for another job — repeatedly yelled at him to drop the knives.
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Fearing for their own safety, the two officers simultaneously shot him with a gun and a Taser.
Lauer was immediately taken into surgery for non-life threatening injures at the same hospital he attacked as police searched his 4WD, finding the bomb note in the front seat and a “large item” covered by a blanket in the back seat.
Police backed away, the hospital was sent into lockdown and the bomb squad was sent in to search the vehicle. No explosive device was found.
New details of what drove Lauer to target the hospital can now be revealed after he pleaded guilty to using an offensive weapon to commit an indictable offence and leaving an article to create a false belief of danger.
Agreed facts state after the incident Lauer told investigators he had separated from his wife of 36 years, his mother had recently died and he had gambled away more than $1 million.
After the shooting, police searched his clothes and found a funeral service booklet in the name of Patricia Lauer with the handwritten words “I gambled (everything) away”.
Lauer told police he did not intend to harm anyone but himself during the incident.
On the night of the shooting, he said he had parked outside Penrith police station and wrote the word “BOMB” on a piece of paper with the intention of placing it on the dashboard of his vehicle.
He said he sat in his car and contemplated walking into the foyer of Penrith police station with the knives to “run a muck”.
However, he never went through with this plan because there “were too many people on the street at the time” and so he drove to Nepean Hospital.
Last month in court, Lauer avoided jail time and was instead sentenced to a three-year intensive correction order over the incident.
When contacted by The Daily Telegraph this week he declined to comment.
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