New footage released of police storming Lindt Cafe and opening fire

NEVER before seen slow motion footage of tactical operations officers bursting into the Lindt Cafe foyer and firing at the siege gunman has been released.

CHILLING slow motion footage of tactical operations officers bursting into the Lindt Cafe foyer and shooting at the siege gunman has been released.

The clip was played at the inquest into the deaths arising from the siege and showed nine police officers codenamed ‘A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H and I’, storm into the building and open fire.

One officer used his weapon to shatter the cafe’s thick glass door and the Alpha team barged inside.

Providing shelter to his team advancing behind him, the shield-bearer used the light on his pistol to illuminate the hostage-taker.

At least two of the officers can be seen firing rounds from the foyer into the cafe as flash bang grenades explode around them and light up the room. The group then files into the cafe.

Hostage Robin Hope can then be seen being brought out of the cafe and through the foyer to safety.

Gunman Man Haron Monis was instantly killed.

Mother of three Katrina Dawson was hit by seven fragments of a police bullet and died.

Yesterday, a senior constable, known only as Alpha Two, described seeing two white-yellow flashes, which appeared to be gunshots, from where Monis was standing in the cafe’s right-hand corner as he burst in.

“I remember ID'ing him and saying `there’s the c***, there’s the c***, shoot him’,” Alpha Two told the inquest.

An Alpha team member known as “Officer A”, who was standing to the officer’s left, then opened fire with an M4 assault rifle.

“I watched the laser going from the middle of his chest to his head, then I watched his head explode, and he fell down,” he said.

The burst of gunfire was over “within a millisecond” and Monis crumpled to the floor.

The officers then edged towards Monis, Alpha Two dropping his shield and aiming his gun at the hostage-taker.

“I could tell he was dead for obvious reasons — half his head was missing,” he said.

As they moved to drag Monis’ dead body several metres away, Alpha Two saw several hostages sitting and standing nearby, before turning to one of the women.

“I remember saying to her that she’d been saved,” he told the inquest.

Alpha Two then helped rush hostages outside and shouted for medics.

Under cross-examination from Michael O’Connell SC, acting on behalf of the family of hostage Katrina Dawson, who was killed in the crossfire, Alpha Two was asked about his team leader codenamed “Officer B”, who fell to the floor as their team entered.

Alpha Two told the inquest he couldn’t recall seeing Officer B on the ground, but accepted he would have screamed for the man to get up.

The inquest has previously heard Officer B also opened fire when he stormed inside the cafe, but it is not clear which bullets killed Monis.

Alpha Two said he never saw Officer B fire his weapon, but after speaking with the team leader following the siege, was aware the man had fired.

Alpha Two rejected Mr O’Connell’s suggestion he was fatigued and would have been more alert and efficient had police launched an earlier assault, saying he was on high alert regardless.

Police raided the Lindt Cafe after Monis fired shots at escaping hostages at 2.03am on December 16, 2014.

The tactical operative told the inquest he thought Monis’ first shot would have been enough to trigger the “emergency action” needed for officers to storm the cafe.

But it wasn’t until 10 minutes later, when the words “hostage down, hostage down” blared over police radios after Monis shot hostage Tori Johnson dead, that his Alpha team were ordered to storm the building through the cafe’s main doors.

The senior constable, brandishing a 17.6kg ballistics shield, told the inquest he sprinted towards the Martin Place cafe with speed “like Usain Bolt”.

The inquest continues.