Cop who shot at Bassam Hamzy: ‘You can see how ruthless he was’

Adam Barwick is the only police officer who has ever had a shot at taking down NSW’s most notorious and dangerous inmate.He faced off with Bassam Hamzy, before he started his reign of terror, in a dark alleyway on the city’s fringes 20 years ago.

• Bassam Hamzy and his life on the run
• Bassam Hamzy’s day in court playing lawyer

Adam Barwick is the only police officer who has ever had a shot at taking down NSW’s most notorious and dangerous inmate.

He faced off with Bassam Hamzy, before he started his reign of terror, in a dark alleyway on the city’s fringes 20 years ago.

Both men pulled guns on each other, with Detective Senior Constable Barwick’s firing his weapon. The bullet missed its target.

Speaking publicly for the first time about the shooting, Detective Barwick told The Sunday Telegraph his memory of that night is as clear as it was in 1998.

Because of that close call, he carried his gun wherever he went and became the butt of jokes with colleagues for being the only cop who had a chance at taking Hamzy down.

“Yes I get reminded by other cops about that night — how some of it all could’ve ended back then,” Detective Barwick, who now works within the Counter-Terrorism Command, told The Sunday Telegraph.

Adam Barwick has broken a 20-year silence to talk about shooting at Bassam Hamzy just minutes after Hamzy shot dead teen Kris Toumazis. Picture: Sam Ruttyn.

The seasoned investigator and Hamzy took different paths after that night; the latter a life of crime and the former an established career investigating organised crime.

“You can see how he started and what he turned into,” Detective Barwick said.

“What a callous act his initial crime was; targeting a complete stranger after a slight in a nightclub and (Hamzy) gunned him down. You can see how ruthless he was.”

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It was 3am closing time for many of Sydney’s bustling bars on May 30, 1998, and patrons were starting to spill out onto Oxford Street.

Detective Barwick, then a Senior Constable, was driving an unmarked police car with probationary constable Winston Langthorne, barely a few months into the job, in the passenger seat.

They’d been patrolling the streets around the city’s eastern fringes for a few hours, looking for drug activity or anyone worth an intelligence report.

Gang activity thriving in Kings Cross had spilt into surrounding suburbs including Surry Hills.

Crime figure Danny Karam and his namesake gang DKs Boys were wreaking havoc and a turf war in the Golden Mile was erupting.

In a bid to get on the front foot of street crime, Barwick’s boss instructed him to run patrols around the streets late at night looking for anything suspicious.

In the early hours of the morning, they hadn’t struck luck and were headed back to Surry Hills Police Station for a tea break.

Gang activity was thriving in King Cross thanks to Danny Karam and his gang DKs Boys.

Winston Langthorne was on patrol with Det Barwick the night Hamzy shot dead Mr Toumazis.

Approaching a set of traffic lights in the city-bound, right hand lane on Oxford St, Detective Barwick — then 27-years-old — watched people stream out of Mr Goodbar nightclub.

The deafening sound of two large bangs, accompanied by bright muzzle flashes, drew his attention to his right, outside Ardino Hairdressing Salon on the opposite side of the street.

He watched as a towering figure, gripping a handgun at a 45 degree angle, fired two more bullets, one of which hit Kris Toumazis, 18, who was lying on the ground.

“There was seven shots fired by him, I was surprised there wasn’t seven people down,” Chf Insp Barwick said.

That gunman was Bassam Hamzy, who started to run as Barwick told his fresh-faced offsider, Cnst Langthorne, to urgently report the shooting on the police radio.

Hamzy had also indiscriminately fired three shots towards Toumazis’ friends, Nicholas Lambos and Arthur Kazas, who ran across Oxford St towards their injured mate.

One bullet hit Lambos in the shoulder. Barwick, with his gun drawn, leapt out of his car.

“This is only in a matter of seconds and I have yelled out to him, ‘police, stop police’,” he recalled.

“As (Hamzy) has stopped turning, he turned and pointed the gun at me.

“As he has done that I have fired at him.”

It was too dark for Detective Barwick to estimate how far his single bullet strayed from its intended target but its casing was later found 100 metres down the narrow West

Street.

Friends of Mr Toumazis and Hamzy had clashed inside the Mr Goodbar nightclub on Oxford St, Paddington, before tensions reignited hours later outside.

Detective Barwick said he clearly remembered locking eyes with Hamzy and imprinting his face in his memory.

Experience taught him how important accurate descriptions were in solving crime.

“I had been in the police for nine years at that stage and six as a detective,” he said.

“I would have asked hundreds of people, police and witnesses, ‘what did the person look like?’

“At that stage I had given evidence quite a few times and it’s always frustrating when people go ‘oh he is average height with brown hair’.

“But I knew at that stage when it was happening, I would have to know what he looked like to identify him and secondly to broadcast it on the radio.

“I zeroed in on his face and the clothing. Time stood still for a moment where I knew that was important — I had to know what he looked like.”

A young Bassam Hamzy giving the cameras a double thumbs-up. Picture: NSW Police

On foot, Hamzy took a sharp right into Holdsworth Lane and Detective Barwick lost him in the dark, twisting laneways around Paddington.

The detective attempted to follow him down the tiny road — barely wide enough to fit a car — but it wasn’t without hesitation.

He’d just witnessed what Hamzy was capable of.

“We didn’t know if he just stopped in the laneway, he did have two other people with him as well,” he said.

“We didn’t know how many guns there were. When we went into the laneway, we had a peek through and it was black. We just said ‘we gotta go’.”

Police and paramedics helping Mr Toumazis’ friend Nicholas Lambos, who initially hadn’t realised he’d been shot by Hamzy. Picture: Glenn Dickerson

About the same time a message came over the police radio that officers from Kings Cross had come across a man — dressed in black pants and a black jacket like Hamzy — who had

been found with a gunshot wound.

It was Mr Lambos, Mr Toumazis’s friend.

“I don’t think he even realised he was shot he just took off running as soon as the shots started but he got one in the shoulder an collapsed down there,” Detective Barwick said.

The police didn’t know it at the time but Hamzy and Kader Chakaik ran to a car parked nearby and sped off from the scene.

Police rush to the aid of Kris Toumazis after he was shot twice by Bassam Hamzy outside the Ardino Hairdressing salon in Oxford St, Paddington. Picture: Glenn Dickerson

Paramedics desperately trying to revive Mr Toumazis after he was shot in the chest at point-blank range by Hamzy. Picture: Glenn Dickerson

At the time of the shooting, Hamzy was involved in drug crime and thuggery but hadn’t accumulated the violent rap sheet he has today.

Detective Barwick had never heard of him in 1998 but the close call with Hamzy left him hyper vigilant.

Many cops will go through their career without ever firing their gun.

“It makes you hyper vigilant to your surrounding but also hyper sensitive to loud bangs, like a car backfiring,” he said.

The next time he saw Hamzy was in the muster yard at Silverwater jail in 1999, where he was asked to identify the shooter among dozens of other inmates.

Detective Barwick’s recollection of that night, particularly his description of the shooter as the shooter, was key in the prosecution of Hamzy for murder.

“I’m sure I was the only person that said Hamzy was the person that fired the shots in the street,” he said.