Westmeadows Tavern robbers sneak out side door while cops stand guard out front
Two gunmen may have slipped out a side door after terrorising a Westmeadows Tavern employee in the early hours of the morning and keeping heavily armed cops at bay all day.
Police & Courts
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Police are hunting at least two men after they managed to escape after an attempted armed robbery that sent a northern suburb pub into lock down.
Dozens of heavily armed police and members from the Special Operations Group searched the Westmeadows Tavern for four and a half hours after being called to the scene at 5am and entering the pub about 10am.
Speaking at a press conference, Inspector Anthony Brown confirmed the culprits had managed to escape the premises.
“They’ve obviously gone out an entrance that wasn’t covered at the time by one of the police units that were attending it. That’s the best scenario I can come up with,” Insp Brown said.
“We can only set up a cordon as quickly as we can get members in position and clearly they’ve got out in the meantime.
“The members that attended have done a really good job to get a cordon established as soon as they did, I’m quite comfortable that they did as good as they could have.”
He said the alarm had been raised by an employee of the pub who had arrived for work at 5am and witnessed the burglars holding one of his colleagues, a 45-year-old woman, against her will.
At least one of the men was carrying a firearm - believed to be a shotgun or some other form of long-armed gun.
Insp Brown described the experience as “very violent and traumatising” for the woman before she managed to escape.
“As police were attending, the woman managed to escape the premises and ran into the police that were arriving,” he said
“As a result, a cordon was established by the police that were there. As you can imagine it was quite a hectic scene and was unfolding.”
When questioned as to why the search of the pub took so long, Insp Brown said that officers wanted to do the search “thoroughly and properly”.
“It’s an old premises and there’s a lot of cracks and crevices that we wanted to make sure they weren’t hiding in,” he said.
Police are probing CCTV footage from the venue and will be releasing descriptions of the culprits to the public.
The scene on Ardlie Road has been reopened, but the pub will remain closed while it is examined by investigators.
Insp Brown also said that officers will be looking into whether the crime is connected with the attempted robbery of an IGA in Hadfield on Sunday night.
“At this stage I’m not able to confirm or deny any connection. Obviously it’s part of any investigation to see if any other offences are linked. It’s still ongoing and we’re still investigating at this stage,” he said.
Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or at crimestoppersvic.com.au
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