The wife of a police officer who was shot dead by a crazed gunman has hit out at police and claimed they covered up important details surrounding the fatal incident.
A Queensland police officer has held back tears telling how she was sitting just centimetres away from colleague Brett Forte before they were showered in gunfire.
Speaking today at the coronial inquest into the shooting death of Senior Constable Forte, Senior Constable Catherine Nielsen described a shooting gallery as gunman Rick Maddison opened fire on their squad car in May 2017.
Senior Constable Nielsen claimed to have been threatened by superiors after she started asking questions about the circumstances that led to Senior Constable Forte s death â even revealing her gun was taken off her.
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Recounting the moment Maddison opened fire on her and Senior Constable Forte s patrol car on a steep and narrow stretch of road in the Lockyer Valley, Senior Constable Nielsen said she couldn t understand what was going on.
THE HUNT BEGINS RICK Charles Maddison was a local crook who had been annoying police for years. He was known for being aggressive and mouthy. He knew bikies, his name had come up during drug raids and in 2007 he d been heard making a serious threat towards Sen-Sgt Stahlhut (Stahlhut would tell the inquest he did not know about this until 2017). He told people he was going to ambush the senior sergeant and other officers in a driveway. Maddison and a mate would hide behind mulch piles and take them out with an automatic weapon. That same year, the inquest was told Stahlhut wrote an intel report detailing information from a police informant that a man named Rick Matterson had possession of an automatic weapon.
Inquest pieces together timeline of dramatic lead up to Queensland Senior Constable Brett Forte s shooting death msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.