‘He’s coming’: Bodycam footage shows cop’s frantic battle to survive ambush
By Rex Martinich
Hiding behind a tree, where he had dived for cover seconds earlier, Constable Randall Kirk watches as a gunman with a high-powered rifle shoots a colleague dead just metres away.
The young officer had made futile attempts to call for help over the police radio and was forced instead to ring a colleague on his mobile phone.
“He’s coming over, should I run?” Kirk asks.
An inquest into the 2022 Wieambilla massacre, where two police officers and an innocent neighbour were killed by three conspiracy theorists, is under way in Brisbane.
Harrowing footage from Kirk’s body-worn camera showing him taking cover after the killers open fire was released by Coroner Terry Ryan on Wednesday.
Kirk was one of four police officers sent to Gareth and Stacey Train’s Wains Road property, west of Brisbane, on the afternoon of December 12, 2022, at the request of New South Wales Police.
Former school principal Nathaniel Train in December 2020.
The officers were looking for Gareth’s brother, Nathaniel, a former school principal, who had previously been married to Stacey.
Police arrived at 4.30pm with an arrest warrant for Nathaniel after he had illegally crossed the NSW border with a cache of firearms during a COVID-19 lockdown.
Constables Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow were shot dead in cold blood as they walked up the remote property’s driveway.
Kirk hid behind a tree and phoned Acting Sergeant Justin Dryer at the Chinchilla Police station, 41 kilometres north of Wieambilla.
Constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold, who were killed in the Wieambilla shooting, and constables Randall Kirk and Keely Brough, who survived the incident.
“He’s shot Rachel, I believe. She’s dead ... there’s two of them. They’ve got Matthew’s gun now,” Kirk says to Dryer over the phone.
Kirk reports the two shooters are walking towards him with rifles after he fired a shot at them from his police-issue Glock handgun.
“Can you, like, obviously scramble from tree to tree to try and retreat out of there?” Dryer says.
Kirk replies, “I’ll try,” before sprinting for his police vehicle and jumping over a locked gate with his Glock in one hand and his mobile phone in the other.
Bullets can be heard striking the vehicle’s body and windscreen as Kirk gets behind the wheel, spraying the interior with glass fragments and causing him to yell in terror as he drives away.
The fourth officer in the group, Constable Keely Brough, was able to reach nearby grass where she hid from the shooters for two hours until back-up arrived.
Neighbour Alan Dare, 58, whose wife Kerry gave evidence on Wednesday, was shot dead minutes after he arrived at the Trains’ property following the ambush.
Dare went to the property when he saw smoke and feared it was a bushfire but did not realise the flames were coming from a police vehicle set alight by the Trains.
A video by Dare on his mobile phone captured his last minutes as he approached the fire and was shot through the chest by one of the Trains.
Kirk, who was shot in the abdomen and hip, gave evidence at the inquest on Tuesday at Brisbane Coroners Court.
The coroner was shown evidence that Nathaniel sat in a concealed position and watched the officers approach through the scope of his rifle before fatally shooting Arnold.
Evidence was also presented that his brother, Gareth Train, walked up to a wounded Constable McCrow and fatally shot her in the head.
Nathaniel (left), Stacey and Gareth Train held extremist religious views.
All three Trains were shot dead by specialist police six hours after the two constables were killed.
They had refused to negotiate and opened fire on police helicopters and an armoured vehicle.
The coroner also released dozens of police crime scene photos showing equipment found at the property including the dead officers’ Glocks, a military ghillie suit designed to conceal a sniper, a bow and arrows, army backpacks, a bullet bandolier belt, and cardboard shooting targets with crude smiley faces drawn on.
AAP with Marissa Calligeros