Source: DailyTelegraph
A MAN shot in the leg and assaulted by three hooded men outside a western Sydney kebab shop is the latest victim of Sydney's gun crime spree, which includes six shootings this week.
Despite Sydney's alarming gun crime statistics reaching 70 shootings for the year, with 12 in July alone, the acting boss of the police taskforce investigating the shootings has labelled offenders in the latest incidents as just "two-bit pretenders".
A 41-year-old man was in a stable condition yesterday after undergoing treatment at Auburn Hospital for a single gunshot wound suffered at the Smithfield takeaway shop about 9.55pm on Thursday.
Earlier in the night, a bullet grazed the leg of a man in his 30s, shot while sitting in a car parked in a Wentworthville swimming pool carpark. And, at 4.45pm that day, shots were fired into a building in Guildford. No one was injured.
Crime scenes at Smithfield and Wentworthville impounded a car at each location, with a black Honda at the latter believed to be where the Wentworthville victim was shot, while police were still investigating a burnt-out Commodore at Regents Park.
Police at the scene of this week's shooting on Horsley Drive, Smithfield / Pic: Bill Hearne Source: DailyTelegraph
SHOTS FIRED INTO CANLEY HEIGHTS HOUSE
While shots continue to ring out in Sydney's western suburbs, Detective Superintendent Scott Cook, acting boss of the shooting taskforce Operation Apollo, dismissed the latest offenders as "young hoodlums with firearms" who considered themselves "gangsters".
He said the shootings were sparked by drug disputes: "The cause appears to be, at this stage, low-level drug-dealing between hoodlums who now have firearms and consider themselves gangsters. They're two-bit pretenders."
However, opposition police spokesman Nathan Rees said Supt Cook's comments were cause for concern.
"It's alarming that gang culture has become so normalised. It's little comfort to the residents when there's bullets going off in the middle of the night," Mr Rees said.
"If they're petty criminals, arrest them."
He calls for police to have the resources and powers needed to end the shootings.
Fairfield Mayor Frank Carbone reassured his residents the area was still "safe" but acknowledged shootings were not good for the community.
"It's never good - any gun crime - and I'm sure the police will be working very hard to rectify it," Cr Carbone said.
"No one condones gun crime."
The latest incidents follow the fatal shooting of Hells Angel nominee Tyrone Lee Slemnik, 37, who on July 8 became the first casualty in the gang's escalating bikie war with the Comancheros. Since then there have been six other gang-related shootings.
Slemnik was yesterday given a full gang member's funeral at St John's Catholic Church in Campbelltown, the Hells Angel prospect receiving his patch after death.
Another Hells Angel nominee, Rouni al-Khalil, 27, was yesterday granted bail on firearms charges.
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