Four People Shot Outside a Pub During Drive-By Shooting

Witnesses have described the chaos and fear that followed a shooting outside a Queensland venue hosting a boxing tournament, with one person reporting that injured patrons arrived “covered in blood”.

Queensland Police said officers were called after reports that shots had been fired from a vehicle outside a licensed premises in Loganholme, south of Brisbane, at about 8.15pm.

Four people were injured. A 19-year-old woman from Jimboomba was reportedly in a “critical and unstable condition” and is believed to have been an “innocent bystander”, police said.

Two men, aged 38 and 37, were in serious but stable conditions, while a 27-year-old man was listed as stable. Investigators said it remained unclear whether any of the men had been deliberately targeted.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday afternoon, Detective Inspector Ian Galpin said he was appalled that a young woman was fighting for her life after the shooting.

“It’s horrific, it’s something that her family should never have to go through,” he said.

Detective Inspector Galpin cautioned that it was too early to speculate about any possible links to organised crime.

“Establishing a motive for why this has taken place is one of our priorities… there appears to be a level of pre-planning,” he said.

According to The Courier-Mail, one victim was shot in the head, while two others suffered gunshot wounds to the abdomen and another was shot in the arm.

Police said witnesses saw the vehicle leave the scene and added that there was not believed to be any continuing danger to the wider public.

The vehicle allegedly used in the incident was later discovered on fire at Waterfront West.

Fitzys Loganholme, on Bryants Road, had been scheduled to host the Logan City Titles Fight Night on Saturday.

One woman said in a Loganholme community Facebook group that she had been eating dinner with colleagues when the gunfire broke out, forcing them to take cover in a kitchen.

“Scared babies, screaming girls, people coming in covered in blood. [Absolutely] terrifying,” she wrote.

Tyler Florance, 18, told The Courier-Mail that he was cleaning his car across the road when he heard three or four gunshots.

“We could hear a lot of screaming,” he said.

‘I couldn’t believe that something like this was happening so close to my home.’

Speaking to Nine’s Today show, Logan City Mayor Jon Raven said: ‘People are scared, this has sent a shockwave through Logan because we’ve never seen anything like this happen in our city before.’

‘Our hearts go out obviously to the victims and the staff and the people at this boxing event. I’ve been to one of these events before, they’re really family-friendly environment, and I know there’s lots of children who were there, and this will impact them for the rest of their lives,’ Raven said. 

The Logan City Titles Fight Night event reportedly included amateur and professional fights involving men, women and teenagers.

In a post to Instagram, Logan City Titles said it was ‘heartbroken’ at the incident. 

‘Logan City Titles was a family event, an event for our community, showcasing local talent, hard work and everyone’s skills in the ring,’ the post read.

‘These types of incidents have no place in the boxing community and any part of the broader community.

‘As a team we are working through it and dealing with the emotions that come with this. Right now our thoughts go out to the victims and all that were affected.

‘We are praying for full recoveries.’

Deception Bay Boxing Club coach Damien Smith, who had several fighters on the card for the Logan City Titles fight night, told Our News Outlet exclusively that he does not believe the event was the target of the shooting.

‘I feel like a lot of people are jumping to conclusions about what happened – I don’t think boxing had anything to do with it,’ he said.

‘The fights were held at the back of the building, and everything happened in the front. We didn’t even know there was a shooting (at first).’ 

Mr Smith said his fighters and their families were all safe.

Fighter Talia Louise Preston, from Caboolture, shared a heartbreaking statement to Facebook two hours after the shooting.

‘Tonight broke me. My heart hurts for everyone. For anyone who’s injured, I pray you pull through,’ she said.

It’s understood Ms Preston witnessed the teenager being shot, and at first mistakenly believed she was dead.

‘I seen that poor girl die [sic],’ she said.  

Police were urging anyone with information about the incident to contact them.