Gunman targets Sydney father at school pick-up

A gunman has attempted to assassinate a father as the man picked up his teenage daughter from school in Sydney’s west.

Police were called shortly before 3pm on Tuesday after a man pointed a handgun towards a 44-year-old man sitting in a ute parked in a driveway at a school pick-up in Fairfield.

The target’s 15-year-old daughter was sitting in the ute at the time. Both got out of the car and ran.

Neither were injured, but a police statement said the pair were “distressed”.

“The only description provided of the man with the gun was that he was dressed in black, wearing a black balaclava,” the police statement said.

Police are still trying to find out who the gunman was, but believe the target was selected simply because he is related to organised crime figures.

There is no suggestion the target is, himself, involved in organised crime.

‘The man with the gun was was dressed in black, wearing a black balaclava.’

NSW Police

Earlier on Tuesday police made two arrests after the shooting of a funeral venue set to be hosting the family of Lorenzo Lemalu – a Coconut Cartel gang leader shot dead in Vietnam.

Footage showed a gunman firing almost 30 bullets from a military-style assault rifle, believed to be a modified SKS, into the Punchbowl venue, which was empty at the time.

Police made two arrests on Tuesday, a 17-year-old boy who cannot be named due to his age, and a 23-year-old named Ronald Donovan.

Officers seized an “assault rifle magazine” in the arrests, according to a police statement that made no mention of the weapon itself being recovered.

Both were charged with firing the weapon and participating in organised crime activity. Donovan was refused bail and will remain in custody until August.

The Coconut Cartel and their former allies, the Alameddine crime family, are involved in a long-running feud in Sydney’s west and abroad.

Lemalu’s assassination may have been ordered by a third gang following the Cartel’s failure to keep a 400-kilogram methamphetamine importation from the hands of police.

Last year, police thwarted an alleged plot to execute a Sydney man outside his children’s day care centre.

Police are appealing for anyone who witnessed the Fairfield incident, or who has relevant information or dashcam vision from the area about the time of the incident, to call Fairfield Police or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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