Two young constables lured to their deaths didn’t stand a chance.
Queensland Police constables Matthew Arnold, 26, and Rachel McCrow, 29, were caught off guard when they died in a hail of bullets.
The officers would have been no strangers to knocking on the doors – it was part of the job.
But the pair could not have been prepared for the ambush they walked into.
Queensland Police constables Matthew Arnold, 26, and Rachel McCrow, 29, were gunned down in cold blood
Nowhere to hide: The officers had just entered this property at Wieambilla, three hours’ west of Brisbane, when they were gunned down in a hail of bullets
NSW Police put out this image of killer Nathaniel Train just days ago
The officers had been carrying out ‘routine missing person inquiries’ on Monday at the isolated property on Wains Rd, south of Chinchilla, at about 4.40pm.
Queensland Police had received a special request from NSW Police regarding missing Dubbo man Nathaniel Train.
Train – a former school principal at Yorkeys Knob State School in Cairns – was hardly considered a dangerous intercept.
Photos of him online show him smiling with young students while wearing a santa hat as part of a school fundraiser.
Last week, NSW Police issued an appeal for public assistance to locate Train, who had not been seen in Dubbo for almost a year.
He was supposed to be simply another missing person, whose family simply wanted him returned home safely.
What the officers likely didn’t know was that some detectives in NSW knew Train had relatives with an ‘intense distrust of police’.
Train had been holed-up at his brother Gareth’s home when Constables Arnold and McCrow made their final call of duty.
While no doubt aware that every door knock could be their last, they could not have been prepared for what lay in wait.
Train’s own family, who had been in contact with him while he was on the run, had called the cops themselves when he stopped communicating with them on December 4.
They reportedly had ‘serious concerns for Nathaniel’s welfare’.
Smoke can be seen around the area where the Train brothers tried to flush out an officer with fire
Alan Dare (left) was murdered when he tried to help the stricken officers
Wieambilla will forever now be known as the small country town where two officers were executed
While little remains known about Train’s criminal history, public checks reveal he had a prior criminal history limited to traffic offences in Queensland and NSW.
Positioned outside the brightly painted yellow weatherboard home, the two officers made their approach.
Photographs of the Wains Road property indicate the pair would have had little place to find cover upon being fired at.
Dressed in camouflage – as if prepared for the war they were about to declare on Queensland Police – Train and his brother Gareth opened fire from the shadows.
Caught by surprise and stuck in the open, Constables Arnold and McCrow went to ground in the barrage of bullets.
What happened next was the stuff of nightmares.
If Constables Arnold and McCrow weren’t already dead, they would only be alive for a few more seconds.
A neighbour, Alan Dare, was fatally shot while attempting to go to their assistance.
As the officers lay wounded, Constables Arnold and McCrow were seen to be approached by the gunmen and shot ‘execution-style where they lay’, The Australian reported.
The cold blooded killers then removed the dead officers’ Glock pistols and looked for more victims.
Constable Matthew Arnold will gunned down in cold blood
Constable Rachel McCrow was executed alongside her partner
The Train brothers were dressed in camo and waiting inside this home to declare war on Queensland Police
Emergency crews at the rural property south of Chinchilla on Monday afternoon
Two other officers, who had stood back as their colleagues went ahead, were also caught-up in the massacre.
Another female officer managed to escape, dodging the offenders after they reportedly started a bushfire in a bid to find her.
In the job only a matter of months, she was rescued by fellow officers sent in to extract her.
A male officer suffering a gunshot wound was taken to Chinchilla Hospital.
The police extraction team managed to remove the bodies of the dead constables while engaging in a fierce firefight with the deranged brothers.
Queensland Police’s Special Emergency Response Team ended the siege about 11.30pm – finding the bodies of all three inside dead, including Gareth’s partner.
As Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll paid tribute to the officers in an emotional press conference late Monday, Queensland Police Union President Ian Leavers described the killing of the two officers as ‘ruthless, calculated and targeted execution’.
‘These officers’ tragic, needless and senseless murders have already been felt deeply across Queensland and all over Australia,’ he wrote in a memo to police.
‘Our thoughts are also with police who bravely contained and managed the subsequent operation that has now resulted in the deaths of all the offenders.’
‘We are all in a state of shock and disbelief. To be here tonight and know that two brave police both under the age of 30 have needlessly lost their lives affects all our emotions.
‘To know that she and he are no longer with us in what was a ruthless, calculated and targeted execution of our colleagues and loved ones brings home the very real risks that we face every single day doing our jobs.’
Flags will be flown at half mast at all police stations across Queensland on Tuesday while a floral tribute is building outside Chinchilla police station.
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