A senior New South Wales police officer is in a serious but stable condition after he was stabbed twice by an alleged child sex offender he was attempting to arrest.
The 45-year-old officer, named in reports as Detective Sergeant John Breda, was stabbed in the chest and abdomen in the beer garden of the busy Maroubra Junction Hotel on Australia Day afternoon.
The man who stabbed him, Nick Newman, was shot by two other police and died at the scene.
Newman, 33, was wanted for alleged child sex offences, police say.
The officer who was stabbed was rushed to St Vincents Hospital in a critical condition, where he had emergency surgery.
Assistant Commissioner Mark Walton said the two other officers who were involved in the incident were “traumatised”.
NSW police said they attended the hotel just after 3pm “as a part of an ongoing investigation”.
Speaking to reporters on Friday evening, Assistant Commissioner Mark Walton said the officer had been stabbed in the chest and abdomen. He had undergone emergency surgery at St Vincent’s hospital.
Walton said detectives had approached Newman in the beer garden of the hotel, and he stabbed the officer as they tried to arrest him. The two other detectives then shot the man, who died at the scene.
“This was a relatively routine situation but unfortunately it’s escalated into a serious outcome,” Walton said.
He said the senior officer was “very well regarded by his peers” and other officers who witnessed the incident were traumatised.
On Thursday police had said they were searching for Newman, who was wanted on an arrest warrant for child sex offences, and was scheduled to appear at Penrith local court on 24 January.
Walton confirmed that a critical incident team from the Homicide Squad would investigate the incident, and the investigation would be subject to independent review.
7 News at 6pm: Maroubra in lockdown. A policeman stabbed and a man shot dead. The arrest that ended with an officer under attack then gunfire. Pictures of the huge police response and the race to save lives. #7News pic.twitter.com/qCwMxm3yi1
— 7 News Sydney (@7NewsSydney) January 26, 2018
Multiple police crews responded to the initial reports from the south-eastern Sydney suburb.
Pedro Casemiro was walking to the gym across the road from the hotel when he heard police cars rush past with sirens blaring.
He said he walked onto Maroubra Road in time to see scores of police officers running into the pub.
“Ten seconds later a lot of policemen started running around the hotel,” he said. “The guys at the hotel said someone is shot, someone is dead.”
A nearby business owner said one of his customers heard the gunshots.
“One of my customers said someone was shot dead,” he said.
Businesses were closed in the immediate area, with parts of Maroubra Road taped off, while dozens of officers remained in place outside the pub.
“I was just working ... all of a sudden I hear about four or five gunshots next door,” a witness told radio 2GB.
“I look up, I go outside, there’s all these sirens there and I see a guy come out in handcuffs and another guy in a stretcher.”
Hamid Farajollahi who lives nearby to the hotel said he heard what sounded like gunshots just after 3pm.
“About 10 or 15 minutes later I was walking past the hotel and there were maybe seven or eight police cars directing people to move away. When I asked the locals what happened they said there’d been a stabbing,” he said.
Large police presence at maroubra junction over a brawl in Maroubra junction hotel. #australiaday pic.twitter.com/CrZkSYgdWf
— Hamid Farajollahi (@HamiFaraj) January 26, 2018
