A 21-year-old McKellar man will face the ACT Magistrates Court today after a shooting in Belconnen on Wednesday 18 August in which a 56-year-old man was taken to hospital with a gunshot wound to the leg.
On Thursday, 19 August 2021, ther man was arrested following a police pursuit that spanned multiple Belconnen suburbs and into Karabar (NSW), where he used the vehicle he was driving to ram a police car. The man was later identified by police as a person of interest in the Belconnen shooting the day before.
Upon being arrested across the border the man was charged with numerous driving offences.
He will appear in the ACT Magistrate’s Court today for multiple offences in relation to the pursuit, including failing to stop for police, driving a vehicle without consent, dangerous driving, driving at police, failing to comply with health directions, and breaching a good behaviour order.
The man will also face new charges of threats to kill, inflicting grievous bodily harm, and act endangering life in relation to the Belconnen shooting.
Detective Superintendent Scott Moller, ACT Policing Criminal Investigations said at this stage the shooting transpired as part of a robbery.
Since the incident and subsequent NSW arrest, ACT Policing have dedicated their efforts toward developing the brief of evidence for the court.
“We’ve been going through the investgation since that time, there’s been a lot of effort put into that,” Detective Superintendent Moller said.
“It’s been a complex investigation, any investigation where you don’t arrest someone at the scene and you’ve got to locate them after is hard.”
The victim has just been released from hospital, after undergoing a number of surgeries related to his injury.
Fragments taken from the injury are still being analysed by ACT Policing.
It is believed the weapon in question was a rifle, which is yet to be recovered.
About 9.30am on 18 August, police were called to the underground carpark of a hotel in Chandler Street, Belconnen following reports of a man being shot. The man was located and transferred to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police searched the area around the hotel, however were unable to locate the gunman. Dozens of police personnel remained at the scene for hours and were joined by heavily armed tactical officers, sniffer dogs and plain clothes detectives.
“The response to any shooting is significant,” Detective Superintendent Moller said.
“From a policing perspective, we drop everything to try and ensure the public safety, and that’s what we did on that day and continued for the next twelve hours until we found him in Queanbeyan.”
CCTV footage from the incident, Detective Superintendent Moller said was very useful during the investigation, will not be released publicly at this stage.
The man has remained in custody since his arrest on 19 August 2021.
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