{"id":492611,"date":"2026-02-20T14:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T14:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/492611\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T14:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T14:57:08","slug":"four-teenagers-charged-after-drive-by-shooting-of-matt-utai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/492611\/","title":{"rendered":"Four teenagers charged after drive-by shooting of Matt Utai"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">New South Wales Police has charged four teenagers over the drive-by shooting of former NRL player Matt Utai and the alleged arson attacks targeting his family in Sydney. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Utai sustained gunshot wounds to his leg and shoulder during a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-league\/articles\/c8eg71gywlyo\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">drive-by shooting in Sydney suburb Greenacre<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A 16-year-old boy and a 19-year-old man have both been charged with &#8220;accessory after the fact to shoot at with intent to murder&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A 18-year-old and another 19-year-old have both been charged with damaging property by fire, while the latter was also charged with supplying prohibited drugs. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Utai, 44, remains in a serious condition after undergoing surgery for his injuries. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Police said the shots had been fired from a white SUV, which was later found burned out in nearby Wiley Park.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On Wednesday, police attended a further incident after shots were fired at a house in St Clair. A woman in her 50s was at home but was not injured.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A short time after they found a car on fire in Colyton and later the same day a house and vehicle were found ablaze in Guildford West.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">New South Wales Police department said a task force was assembled to investigate the incidents &#8211; all of which are believed to have been targeting the same family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New South Wales Police has charged four teenagers over the drive-by shooting of former NRL player Matt Utai&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-492611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}