One dead after Australia shooting outside nightclub
Firemen wash away bloodstains after a security guard was shot dead with another man fighting for his life after a drive-by shooting outside a popular Melbourne nightclub on April 14, 2019. Police said four men — three security guards and a patron waiting to get in — were shot outside the venue in the trendy inner-city suburb of Prahran amid a spate of gun violence in Australia’s second-largest city. AFP
MELBOURNE, Australia – A security guard is dead and another man is fighting for his life after a drive-by shooting outside a popular Melbourne nightclub, police said Sunday, amid a spate of gun violence in Australia’s second-largest city.
Police said four men – three security guards and a patron waiting to get in – were shot outside the Love Machine club in the trendy inner-city suburb of Prahran early Sunday morning.
“It would appear that shots have been discharged from a car in this area into a crowd that was standing outside the nightclub,” Victoria Police Inspector Andrew Stamper told reporters.
“This is just a horrendous act. It’s a busy nightclub, one of the main nightclubs in Melbourne in one of the main entertainment precincts in Melbourne.”
The 37-year-old security guard was taken to hospital but died soon after.
Article continues after this advertisementA 28-year-old man was in a critical condition, while two others aged 29 and 50 had non-life threatening injuries, police said.
Article continues after this advertisementA police spokeswoman told AFP the shooting was not believed to be linked to terrorism.
Investigators were probing links to motorcycle gangs, Melbourne’s Age newspaper reported.
Police were also probing whether a black Porsche SUV seen leaving the area and later found burnt out in another suburb was linked to the shooting.
The latest incident came after a spate of shootings in Melbourne in March that left five people dead in four separate incidents. Two of the incidents were believed to be gang-related.
Stamper stressed that there was “nothing to indicate” that the shooting was part of a “broader agenda”.
Mass shootings are rare in Australia, which has strict firearms laws introduced in 1996 after 35 people were killed by a gunman in Port Arthur.
A murder-suicide last year which left seven members of a family dead in Western Australia was the country’s worst mass shooting since the Port Arthur attack. /cbb
