A shooting at the home of a mother and four young children early on Saturday morning is being treated as a case of wrong address, with police believing the alleged target of the attack had moved out of the residence several months earlier.
In what local police described as a “highly reckless and violent attack on an innocent family”, two offenders are alleged to have shot several bullets into a house in Merrylands, in Sydney’s west, before 3.30am on Saturday.
The scene of the burnt-out car at Chiswick Road, South Granville.Credit: Archie Staines
Shortly after the shooting, while police were investigating the incident, authorities were called to Chiswick Street in South Granville, less than five minutes from the house, where a car had been set alight.
Upon reviewing CCTV, police identified a silver or grey Nissan X-Trail that was at the scene of the shooting as the same car that had been set on fire, before the fire spread to two nearby vehicles.
Cumberland Police Area Command superintendent Simon Glasser told an afternoon press conference that the shooting had left a mother in her 30s and four young children “very shaken”.
“This was an innocent family caught in the cross-fire,” he said. “We believe we know who the target is, it’s not the family that reside at that address.”
That alleged victim is well known to police, he added.
The two people in the X-Trail are believed to have escaped the scene via foot, going through bushland towards Auburn, he said. They have not yet been found.
