NSW Police’s top brass giving no answers as Sydney’s gangland war continues unabated

While gangland violence on Sydney’s streets is seemingly going unchecked, the citizens of this great city seek assurances all is being done to catch the killers, writes Anna Caldwell.

Two women were shot dead on a suburban Sydney street this week. Take that in.

Of the two dead, just one was the target, the other simply a bystander.

Then there were another two young people — a 16-year-old girl and her 20-year-old male friend — scarred for life with survivors’ guilt and the horror of having bullets buzz past their heads inside a car.

All this in a suburban street in Revesby.

This is not a one-off. There have been at least 16 people shot dead in two years in Sydney, linked to gang conflict. That’s roughly one every six weeks.

This is not the Sydney we love.

Lametta Fadlallah is believed to be the intended target of the Revesby assassination.

Amy Hazouri was killed in the Revesby shooting.

But the real horror is this. Of the 16 assassinations, the alleged gunmen for 14 of them remain at large.

And one of those not on the run is only in that column because he himself was gunned down.

The cops can’t lay a finger on the rest.

Dominic Perrottet, Paul Toole and Karen Webb stand up and herald their tough-on-crime approach but the assassins who seem to live large and run amok in our city are making fools of them with every bullet fired.

Asked on Thursday whether she was concerned about reprisals after the assassination of two women this week, Commissioner Karen Webb bordered on dismissive: “That’s very much an active investigation, that family is still grieving and we will work through that investigation to see what lines of inquiry need to be followed more but we will certainly cast that net very wide and narrow it as the investigation goes along.”

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dylan Coker

Huh?

That’s just a big word salad to inform people that they’ve really thus far gotten nowhere. And it’s not really good enough.

The truth is the business model of the assassins is too sophisticated for our own authorities to crack.

Police pictured at a crime scene at a house on Hendy Ave where there was a shooting incident. Picture: Damian Shaw

They use encrypted phones to auction the hit, drive cars stolen months in advance with fake number plates attached, cover their faces, torch the cars and run to a waiting getaway car.

And then disappear into the night.

Even with Sydney’s wide-ranging net of CCTV cameras, time and time again the authorities are left drawing blanks.

Asked whether there was a perception police had lost control of the streets given the amount of unsolved murders, Webb was defensive.

She said that’s “not the case at all”, noting there are 18,000 police on the streets every day protecting the community.

Police out the front of Hendy Avenue in Revesby conducting a search for evidence after a targeted shooting. Picture: Richard Dobson

She knows very well the problem is not with police on the beat or the detectives working their hearts out to solve cases.

But there is a bigger issue with resourcing and police technology if we can’t catch a break against the assassins.

Senior sources are also furious the law reform package which was meant to strip gangs of unexplained wealth and make encrypted devices illegal appears to have stalled in the parliament.

We don’t know yet whether these laws will help catch more killers or deter others but surely there should be some urgency in getting them through parliament.

One crime expert told me encrypted phones are “the modern murder weapon”.

“It’s as dangerous as a gun. There is not an execution that is not planned, carried out or ordered without an encrypted device being used.”

Encrypted messaging is making it harder for police to track and catch Sydney’s assassins.

When Webb was asked on Thursday why it was taking so long to solve the killings, she shot back: “This is not a CSI one-hour program. These are complex, these take time.”

Of course the public does not expect cases are solved within the hour but they are looking for some assurance our streets will be made safe again.

They need some assurance these killers will be brought to justice.

If Chris Minns and Labor are able to seize ground on this issue they will have even more wind in their sails as they head towards the next election.

What’s happening on Sydney streets is plainly shocking. The worst gang war in living memory. Women being shot dead in the streets.

If there was ever a case the police commissioner should be having some answers to it is this one.

Anyone with any doubt that this gang era was just baddies shooting baddies can lay that theory to rest after this week.

The families of victims also deserve answers and families living in suburban streets deserve some level of comfort that one day soon these random killings will be stamped out.

We aren’t the first city in the world to face this problem. Others have cleaned up their act and now we must too.