Wollongong: Man shot, bashed by unknown attackers outside a Wollongong unit block
Emergency Services were called to a Wollongong unit block around last night, after reports a man had been shot in the knee, with what’s believed to be a rifle, and bashed by two men wearing dark hoodies.
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Police have labelled a shooting at a Wollongong apartment block as a “targeted attack”, after a man was ambushed and bashed in a stairwell while trying to visit his friends.
Emergency Services were called to a Market Street unit block around 9pm last night, after reports a 50-year-old man had been shot in the knee, with what’s believed to be a rifle, and attacked with a sledgehammer by two men wearing dark hoodies.
In speaking with detectives on Monday, the man told police he didn’t know who the men were, and that they attacked him seemingly out of nowhere.
Wollongong Police Inspector Brad Ainsworth said as the victim tried to fight his attackers off, he called out to his friends in the nearby apartment for help, but no one came.
“He fought back the attackers and screamed and yelled at a considerable rate and the people within the units he was heading to didn’t come out,” he said.
“So that’s part of our line of inquiry.”
Inspector Ainsworth said it was a “clearly targeted attack”, but would not go into detail about possible motivations.
“I would go so far as to say he could have been ambushed at that unit complex down there,” Inspector Ainsworth said.
“[The victim] gave a good account of himself apparently, he threw a few objects at them at them and things like that … after the assault one of the males produced a firearm.”
Police believe the attackers aimed the gun at the man’s knee, and pulled the trigger in very close proximity, understood to be less than a metre away.
The man was rushed to hospital to undergo surgery, and on Wednesday morning Wollongong Police Inspector Brad Ainsworth said the man had been very cooperative with police and given a credible account of the horrific events. The residents of the apartment block he was headed to, however, had refused to speak much with police, giving a “doubtful” explanation to detectives.
Police are now hunting for the two attackers, who were wearing dark coloured hoodies and fled in a dark coloured car last seen driving down Market Street and onto Corrimal Street.
Inspector Ainsworth also confirmed the victim was not known to police prior to last night’s shooting, and that they had never been called to the apartment block for anything significant.