Queen Street massacre
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The Queen Street massacre was a murder-suicide that occurred on December 8, 1987 at the Australia Post offices in Melbourne, Australia. The attack resulted in 8 fatalities and 5 injuries.[1]
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[edit] Details
At around 4:00pm, 22-year old Frank Vitkovic, a former law student, walked into the building in Melbourne's Queen Street holding a brown paper bag and carrying a sawn-off shotgun. He opened fire at the offices in Australia Post, leaving 8 fatalities and 5 injuries.
On entering the fifth floor office where the second intended victim worked, Vitkovic pulled a sawn-off shotgun from the bag and began firing at fleeing workers, killing a young woman office worker. The friend chosen as the original target escaped unharmed. Vitkovic then moved from floor to floor, where he walked through office areas picking his targets randomly, shooting some workers at close range execution style as they cowered under their desks, as well as murdering those in the elevators.
The massacre ended on the 11th floor, in the finance department, when the gun was wrestled from Vitkovic by office worker Frank Carmody, and hidden in a refrigerator by another worker. Vitkovic then took his own life, despite valiant attempts from the postal workers to save him, by breaking a window and diving to his death. This was witnessed by numerous onlookers, from all floors of the Australia Post building, since the building opposite was mirrored glass, as well as by others from the viewpoints of these opposite buildings, and others outside the building. Carmody was recommended for a bravery award after his actions in disarming the killer.
Victorian Police Minister Race Mathews and Attorney General Jim Kennan also witnessed the event from a building diagonally opposite while gathered for a meeting.
The murderer's death was also seen in detail by many who had barricaded themselves inside the 18 floors of the Australia Post building, because the building opposite was a mirrored glass building. All these workers were barricaded in their offices from 4:00pm until 8:00pm. They had heard gunshots echoing up the stairwells around 4:00pm and, at first believing that the philatelic section was being robbed, had been told by management to barricade themselves in the safest of their offices. All these people had no knowledge of what was really occurring, and their only information, over these four hours, was misinformation from televisions in their offices, which were reporting that many gunshots had been heard, that people were barricaded in their offices, that scores of people may have been murdered or lay dying, and that police were not entering the building because of the possibility of terrorists. The police only entered the building around 8:00pm, after the murderer threw himself to his death. During these four hours, many people were severely traumatized, and continue to suffer debilitating post traumatic stress disorder to this day.
[edit] Motivation
The motivation for the massacre was Vitkovic's desire to murder a former school friend, Con Margellis, who worked in the building, and then to take out as many others as possible before ending his own life. Earlier that day he had travelled to the University of Melbourne with the same murderous intent, but his intended target was not on-campus, thus he proceeded to Queen Street.
[edit] See also
- Going postal
- Hoddle Street massacre, spree shooting which occurred earlier the same year in Melbourne on August 9, 1987
- List of disasters in Australia by death toll
[edit] References
- ^ European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (1979). Kunapipi. Dangaroo Press.
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