Gunfire from ‘almost robotic’ shooters rocked armoured cop vehicle

A 9½-tonne heavily armoured vehicle rocked when a volley of gunshots was fired at the windscreen, a police officer has told an inquest.

The specialist officer had responded to a Wieambilla property where two police colleagues and a civilian had been ambushed and shot dead on December 12, 2022.

The inquest is being held into the deaths of Constables Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow and neighbour Alan Dare, who were shot by Nathaniel, Gareth and Stacey Train at the property in the Western Downs area, west of Brisbane.

Officers tried calling mobile phones linked to the Trains before using a loud hailer to call on the shooters to put down their weapons.

Attempts to negotiate were met with no response, other than gunfire, State Coroner Terry Ryan was told.

The three shooters were almost robotic, not gesturing or yelling, a specialist officer, who cannot be named, said on Thursday.

“They just went about placing themselves in suitable positions to get lethal gunfire towards us.”

The officer was in the front seat of the heavily armoured vehicle about 100 metres from the house on the property when a light shone in their direction and a volley of gunfire followed.

“How we rocked when a number of those rounds hit the front of the BearCat [armoured vehicle], it was quite surreal,” he said.

“I’ve never experienced that before – just the magnitude of the calibre we were dealing with.”

The armoured police BearCat, used by the tactical response team that eventually killed the Trains.

The court has been told police had considered whether any of the Trains were being held against their will but it seemed clear all three were there voluntarily when they continued firing at police vehicles and a helicopter.

PolAir officers sent screenshots of vision to police on the ground to show where the Trains were positioned.

Officers in vehicles attempted to negotiate with the Trains for over an hour while trying to avoid coming under heavy fire.

After Gareth and Stacey Train were shot, police tried to talk to Nathaniel, who was lying prone firing a rifle before reaching up to a table for a Glock pistol, the officer said.

“SERT [Special Emergency Response Team] Operative 106 is in the turret yelling out to him to put the weapons down, show us your hands, the negotiations continued the whole time for him to surrender.”

He was behind a log before getting up to fire a Glock – taken from one of the dead officers – when he was shot by a police sniper.

High-calibre shots to the light-armoured vehicle in which another specialist officer was travelling “packed a punch”, the inquest was told.

“The vehicle is quite a few tonne in weight [and] those rounds were hitting and were actually moving the vehicle,” that officer, who also cannot be named, told the inquest.

“When they were hitting on the window and windscreen ... inside the vehicle you could feel the percussion or the effects of that round hitting the glass.”

The inquest is set to continue on Monday.