By Kyra Gillespie
Mystery continues to shroud the alleged firearms incident in Pakenham, as police remain tight-lipped on details surrounding reports of a man wielding a sawn off shot gun near Pakenham Springs Shopping Centre on Monday 25 March.
Police were called to Livingstone Boulevard around 6.10pm after a Pakenham mother of two witnessed a confrontation between four men, one armed with a firearm, in the middle of the road.
The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, was pulling out of Pakenham Springs Primary School when her car was fronted by the men on the street.
“The guy was less than a metre from my car as I pulled out of the school,“ she said.
“He absolutely held a black, what looked to be a sawn off shot gun pointed at another man behind him as they ran down the street.
“It was really scary; at first I thought they were play fighting with a water gun or something like that. Then I saw the looks on their faces and realised they were dead serious.
“The guy that had the gun turned around and aimed it at the man behind him. I screamed at my kids to duck and just drove through it and called the police. He didn’t fire, just aimed the gun.“
She described the alleged gunman as tanned and dressed in dark clothing. She believes the other men giving chase were Caucasian; one looked like he was in his early twenties and the other early thirties.
“It was quite bizarre, because the unarmed men were running after the armed one,” she added.
Her two children, aged eight and seven, witnessed the whole thing.
“My daughter was saying she was worried the man would come to our house because he knows what the car looks like.
“It was strange because my son never usually gets in the car willingly, but today he did. So we left the school a bit earlier.
“If we’d been any later we would have been face to face without the protection of the car.“
Police were seen searching the area, including the school.The three victims who engaged with the alleged gunman have been spoken to by police.
There have been no reported injuries and police have quashed reports of gunfire.
“No shots were fired as far as we’re concerned,“ Senior Constable Adam West told the Gazette on Monday night.
A witness, who said her father’s van was “shot at” has back-pedalled on her claims.
“I posted wrongly and didn’t have time to correct it without people jumping down my throat,” she said.
“Sorry if this caused any inconvenience.”
The shopping centre remained open during the incident, a Coles employee confirmed.
“We were okay, police were around but the centre remained open. There’s nothing going on inside the centre now.“
Henty Estate residents were told to stay indoors by police.
Victoria Police have remained quiet on the incident; Pakenham police diverted queries to the state media line, which didn’t provide any updates from 8.40pm onwards on Monday night.
The lack of information caused quite a stir on social media from surrounding residents, desperate to know whether a supposed “gunman” was on the loose near their homes.
“Is there a gunman on the loose?” One person asked.
“How do you walk around with a firearm and not get arrested immediately?” another said.
