A father has been shot by police following a high-speed car chase in Adelaide.
The man, who is 26, allegedly abducted his partner and their two young children and police say they responded with a shot when he turned his own gun on his 3-year-old.
The man reportedly forced the mother, the 3-year-old girl and a 7-month old baby boy into a car at gunpoint before he was pursued by police.
The car chase was over an hour long through Adelaide and officers forced him to stop by ramming the vehicle at around 11.30pm. That’s when the man reportedly turned his gun on the little girl who was cowering in her mum’s lap.
Police responded by firing a single shot which injured the driver, allowing officers to swarm the vehicle and free the young hostages.
“It will be alleged that he threatened the three-year-old girl with a firearm and that’s when a decision was made for a police officer to fire at the offender,” Assistant Commissioner Paul Dickson said in statement to the media.
“You couldn’t imagine how horrific that would have been for the young mother and her two children,” he continued.
He says the ‘terrible’ incident would have a lasting impact on the family, who have been taken to hospital for observation.
The driver was taken to the Royal Adelaide Hospital in a stable condition where he remains under police guard receiving treatment for the non-life threatening gunshot wound.
