Western Downs shooting: Police had ‘little history, concern’ with Train family
As the probe into last week’s fatal shooting continues, police say there ‘was nothing that would have caused a particular flag for our members’ and are not treating it as a terror event.
Queensland Police say they had “very little history” about the three members of the Train family who killed two police officers and a bystander in the state’s Western Downs last week.
Queensland Police Deputy Commissioner Tracey Linford revealed details about the ongoing investigation into last week’s fatal shooting on Thursday, outlining there “was nothing that would have caused a particular flag for our members who attended on that day”.
“Nathaniel Train, only history with us was a 2014 driving offence, and then more recently, events that have been highlighted in the media around events that occurred on the 17th of December last year,” she said.
“That revolved around reports that Nathaniel Train had crossed over the Queensland border from New South Wales, and had driven his vehicle through an e-gate causing damage and his vehicle got bogged at that location.
“And when police subsequently investigated the vehicle because they were speaking to other locals in the area, two firearms were handed in. Those firearms were registered to Nathaniel Train, he was a firearms license holder.
“In terms of Gareth Train, the only history we heard of him was a 1998 offence of unlawful possession of a firearm, and in that instance, he had had an expired firearms license.
“And in terms of Stacey Train, we have no criminal history or intelligence holdings on her.
“So you can see from that, we knew very little about the Trains and there was nothing that would have caused a particular flag for our members who attended on that day, last Monday, that would have raised any particular concerns about those individuals.”
Ms Linford explained that the reason why four officers from two separate units were sent to the Wieambilla property was due to an outstanding police warrant for Nathaniel Train following the incident in December 2021.
“When there’s a warrant to arrest somebody yet that is quite common. You will usually always take some form of backup.”
Additionally, Ms Linford stated that the QPS are not treating the shooting as a domestic terror event.
“We are not classifying it as a domestic terror event at this point.
“What we can see is sentiment displayed by the three individuals, the three Train family members that were anti-government, anti-police, conspiracy theorist … but we can’t see them connected to any particular group they were working with.”
It was also revealed during the press conference that it was Nathaniel’s wife in New South Wales who made the initial missing persons report, ruling out claims that the missing persons report was a premeditated attempt to coax police to the property.
“That missing persons report came from his wife in New South Wales, who had not physically seen him for over 12 months,” Ms Linford said.
“She had not had an opportunity to speak to him by phone since May of this year, she had a genuine concern for his welfare and as a consequence of that she reported him missing to the New South Wales Police who then relayed a request to the Queensland Police to attend the address and weigh in below to see if he was there.”
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