Lindt Cafe siege inquest: Police ‘Alpha team’ reveal last moments leading to Man Monis’ death
THE first officer to storm the Lindt Cafe said he saw Man Monis immediately and shouted: “There’s the c..t. Shoot him.”
NSW
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THE first officer to storm the Lindt Cafe said he saw Man Monis immediately and shouted: “There’s the c..t. Shoot him.”
Codenamed Alpha 2, a leading senior constable, he was carrying the ballistic shield and was one of the most recognisable figures from media coverage of the dramatic moment police blasted their way into the cafe.
He gave a graphic and colourful description of those last bloody seconds at the inquest into the siege today.
He said his team, Alpha team, “stood to” and was ready to go after the terrorist fired his first shot when six hostages escaped at 2.03am on December 16, 2014.
“Officer A and myself said we’ve got to go, mate we’ve got to go,” Alpha 2 said today.
“Once he fired the first round I remember saying this has now turned real.”
Alpha A said someone said they thought it was a door slamming.
“I said it’s not a f..king door slamming, it’s a shot being fired,” Alpha A said.
He heard the second shot which was fired at 2.09am and then the third when Monis shot dead cafe manager Tori Johnson at 2.13am.
Then the team leader, codenamed Officer B, said the codeword to commit the emergency plan and storm the cafe.
Alpha A said he felt he raced up Phillip Street to the cafe’s main doors with the team behind him “like Usain Bolt”.
Carrying the 17.5kg ballistic shield, Alpha A said the officer who breached the cafe’s glass doors came from behind him while sheltering behind the shield.
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He has switched on the light source on his police regulation Glock pistol and saw Monis where they had been told he was, towards the right hand corner of the cafe near Martin Place.
“I remember going in, I remember identifying him and saying there’s the c..t, there’s the c..t, shoot him.”
As flashbang stun grenades exploded, he saw the red laser dot from Officer A’s M4 carbine on Monis’ chest and then move up to the gunman’s head.
“I watched the laser ... from the centre of his chest go to his head and his head exploded and he fell,” he said today.
The inquest has been told that Officer A fired 17 rounds. Alpha A said it was all over “super quickly” and Monis was killed in a “millisecond”.
At the door of the cafe, Officer B slipped on the glass from the shattered door.
“I would have yelled out get the f..k up,” Alpha 2 said.
The inquest has heard that Officer B moved to the left into the cafe and fired five rounds. Alpha A said he did not hear Officer B fire.
When the sound stopped, Alpha 2 said he saw one of the hostages, Louisa Hope, who had been standing close to Monis. She told him she couldn’t walk because she had been hit in the foot.
He told her she had “been saved” and along with Officer A carried her out.
“I remember saying get some f..king medics, we need some f..king medics in here,” he said.
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