Lindt cafe siege: How Martin Place siege horror unfolded before me |  The AustralianLindt cafe siege: How Martin Place siege horror unfolded before me |  The Australian



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News





						Lindt cafe siege: How Martin Place siege horror unfolded before me
				





by:
Chris Kenny 


From:

The Australian



December 15, 2014
12:09PM






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Sydney siege: minutes from becoming a hostage
                4:31




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                    Chris Kenny recounts his experience outside the Lindt cafe in Martin Place this morning, as the siege occurred.
                




The Australian
15 Dec 2014

News
News/NSW






 






Siege at Sydney's Martin Place
                4:35




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                    Martin Place has been shut down and scores of police are surrounding the building after the alarm was raised about 9.45am.
                




news.com.au
15 Dec 2014

News






 



 

Police snipers at an armed siege at the Lindt cafe in Sydney’s CBD where staff are being held at gunpoint. Picture: Richard Dobson
Source: News Corp Australia
 

 
 



				THE scene inside the Lindt cafe at 9.35 this morning was typical — as I gathered my takeaway coffee office workers sat around tables chatting.
				



By the time I finished a radio chat from the seats outside in Martin Place five minutes later, a horrific situation had unfolded.Three motorcycle police arrived and a woman still clasping her mobile phone to her ear was telling them about a gunman inside.She had tried to enter the cafe just after I had walked out but the automatic sliding glass doors were shut.Initially she thought the cafe was closed but saw a man with a blue bag and what she thought was a shotgun.As police quickly swarmed and cleared the area, I turned to see a man against the window, facing out with his hands raised.At first I was relieved, thinking this was the gunman responding to police — but soon came the awful realisation that customers were being forced against the windows.
From the outset the suggestion of a hold-up seemed remote — a cafe at 9.30am in the middle of the city seemed an unlikely target.Police said little but pushed shoppers and commuters back as onlookers strained to seen what was going on.Within 10 minutes car-loads of police were on the scene, wearing bullet-proof vests and some with handguns drawn. They were telling their colleagues that specialist officers were on the way.Soon traffic along Elizabeth and Phillip streets was blocked, rail traffic through Martin Place station was halted and a massive emergency operation was under way.My fellow customers — fellow Australians — are now in a horrific situation, the sliding doors of the cafe playing a brutal game of chance and fate in Sydney today.It is a central, busy location, above a crucial train station and across the road from a television network newsroom — whoever has unleashed this was not after cash but impact.Terror is in the heart of Sydney right now.LIVE: Siege at Martin PlaceSIEGE: Opera House shut off






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