shot dead at his home in Merrylands West<\/a> in western Sydney on September 2.<\/p>\nDetectives believe the killing was the city’s second mistaken identity shooting related to organised crime in two days.<\/p>\n
The previous morning, attackers forced their way into a home at southwestern Glen Alpine and fatally shot 23-year-old university student Marco Talia.<\/p>\n
Two men, aged 18 and 19, were arrested in the western Sydney suburb of West Hoxton about 5.30am on Friday, NSW Police said on Saturday.<\/p>\n
A drone seized by officers allegedly contained evidence to suggest the 18-year-old was involved in the Merrylands West shooting.<\/p>\n
He was charged with murder, participating in a criminal group and contributing to criminal activity.<\/p>\n
He is set to appear in bail court on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old was charged with participating in a criminal group, contributing to criminal activity and driving with a suspended licence.<\/p>\n
He was granted bail in Liverpool Local Court on Friday and will return to court on September 24.<\/p>\n
The shooting of MacDonald was at least the fifth suspected NSW mistaken identity killing since May 2025, with fears reckless overseas criminal leaders are ordering the misguided attacks.<\/p>\n
Senior government ministers insist the situation is under control.<\/p>\n
“Police are on top of this,” Acting Premier Prue Car told reporters last week.<\/p>\n
Under-pressure Police Minister Yasmin Catley echoed her claim.<\/p>\n
“I do not accept this is out of control … we will not surrender our streets to organised crime gangs,” she said.<\/p>\n
Sydney’s new criminal model was both changing and difficult, Ms Catley added.<\/p>\n
“Let’s be honest here … this is very challenging. Police are doing everything they can.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A teenager has been charged with murder, accused of operating a drone as part of a suspected botched…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-597811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-australia","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}