Week 2 - Sydney cafe hostage

Hostage in Sydney cafe was killed by police bullets during raid: courts 

The first day of an inquest into a 16-hour hostage standoff in Sydney revealed that police accidentally killed hostage Katrina Dawson as they raided the cafe and shot gunman Man Haron Monis.

When police stormed a Sydney cafe in December, killing a gunman to end a 16-hour hostage standoff, they also accidentally killed a hostage, an inquest revealed Wednesday.

Katrina Dawson, 34, one of the two hostages killed in the Lindt Chocolat Cafe, was struck by six fragments from one or more police bullets, one of which hit a major blood vessel.

That detail emerged in the first day of a coroner’s court inquest about what happened that day in December and what led up to it. Several surviving hostages will be called as witnesses, the BCC reports.

A former member of Australia’s counter-terrorism unit has suggested the police used the wrong rifles during the standoff, with bigger bullets that were more likely to ricochet, ABC reports.

The first inquest day also revealed that gunman Man Haron Monis forced Tori Johnson, the other hostage who was killed, to kneel down before being shot in the back of the head. The media previously reported Johnson, the cafe's manager, tried to knock the gun out of Monis’ hand before being shot.

Monis took 18 people hostage in the Lindt Chocolate Cafe on a Monday morning. He reportedly had a history of mental illness and supported radical Islamic extremism. During the standoff, he hung a black flag in the cafe that said in Arabic: “There is no God but Allah; Muhammed is the Messenger of Allah,” a phrase that also appears on the ISIS flag.

Police raided the cafe after several hostages ran out of it. Besides the three fatalities, four other hostages and a police officer were injured.

As the inquest continues, prosecutors plan to delve into Monis’ mental health history and determine how he got the guns used in the attack.

structure:

who: police, hostage and gunman Man

what: police accidentally killed hostage

when: not given

where: Sydney

why: to save hostage

how: use gun

website:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/sydney-cafe-hostage-killed-police-bullets-courts-article-1.2095666

keywords:

1. raid 突襲

2. inquest 審訊

3. standoff 僵局

4. storm 攻佔;闖入

5. coroner 驗屍官

6. ricochet 彈飛

7. prosecutor 檢察官

8. delve 探索;翻找