Daniel King shooting: Inquest into death outside Penrith police station
An inquest into the death of Daniel King, shot 24 times by police, has revealed what it was like for officers at Penrith police station when the bullets came through the windows.
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An inquest into the death of Daniel King, who went on a shooting rampage before being shot 24 times by police, has given an insight into the chaos at Penrith police station when the shooting took place.
King shot up his partner’s home in Marayong before shooting at police stations at St Marys and Penrith, but an inquest has heard police responding to the events were completely unaware it was the same shooter for all three.
On October 2, 2019, 22-year old Jessica Bunting was working as a communications officer at the Penrith police station when reports of a shooting near neighbouring St Mary’s police station came in at 9.28pm.
As a dispatcher, it was her job to relay information over the police radio and co-ordinate with the units responding.
The inquest was told when the call came in, it was classified as a priority three — non-urgent — and didn’t surprise Ms Bunting, as it was “definitely not unusual” to hear reports of gunshots in St Mary’s.
What Ms Bunting wasn’t told was the shots were fired in the police station itself, which she said would have generated a different immediate response, the inquest heard.
That shooter was Daniel King, and he would quickly move from St Mary’s police station to Penrith police station, where Ms Bunting was working.
At Penrith, she heard the shots as they came through her window.
She told the inquest she quickly moved to take cover under her desk, but continued typing at her keyboard, tentatively looking up, while giving updates on the police radio.
“I was trying to duck so I wasn’t in a straight line of sight with the window,” Ms Bunting said.
Audio of the moments after King started shooting at the Penrith station was played in the Coroners’ court.
Ms Bunting can be heard calmly relaying that the police station had just been shot, with officers injured, and called for an ambulance, while multiple units check in and crowd the airwaves.
But instead of broadcasting out two tones on the radio – priority two, making it more urgent — Ms Bunting only sent out one, struggling to reach the controls while taking cover from a hail of bullets.
Ms Bunting was in tears in the witness box as she recalled the mistake, in stark contrast to how calm she was while being shot at by King.
The first assumption by police was that it was another drive-by shooting, just like St Mary’s, Ms Bunting explained.
She told the inquest even as King remained outside, police inside the station were trying to find out which direction his vehicle had left in, organise an ambulance for an injured officer, and co-ordinate backup.
One unit arrived at the back of the police station with no knowledge the shooter was still outside the front, the inquest heard.
Instead, it would end in a gruesome hail of bullets with Daniel King shot 24 times by police outside the station.
Chief Inspector Jill Waters is currently acting commander of the NSW Police radio operations group, and was also called into the inquiry to give evidence.
The court heard there were two shootings in Liverpool on the same night, along with King shooting at the Marayong home of his partner.
“There wasn’t enough evidence at the time for them to be justifiably linked,” Chief Insp. Waters said.
Complicating the response, state co-ordinator Detective Chief Inspector Glynis Cameron was working from an office which was still waiting on a delivery of new computers, with sole colleagues working working off the floor and in different rooms.
Chief Insp. Cameron was trying to organise a ballistics expert to disarm a .22 rifle in Liverpool when the news of the St Mary’s and Penrith shootings started to filter through.
And she was the only state co-ordinator on shift, in a role where two is ideal.
“It would have definitely have made a difference,” Chief Insp. Cameron told the court.
She said in hindsight there would have been sense in informing police there was a co-ordinated attack on police stations, but at the time it was assumed it was multiple people.
“My mind was turned to getting resources into there,” Det Cameron said, noting that she was making calls to the riot squad and technical operations unit.
After the King shooting, police have put in place standard responses for shootings in public places, streamlining how nearby police are notified and the information is disseminated.
But there is still no standard operating procedure for what to do in the event a police station is attacked by an active shooter, the court heard.
The inquest will resume tomorrow at the NSW Coroner’s Court in Lidcombe.
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