In short:
The inquest heard a triple-0 operator who took the call from Alan Dare's widow apologised for a delay in calling her back.
Kerry Dare's husband Alan Dare was killed by the Trains when he went to see what was happening at their property.
Whats next?
The inquest continues.
A triple-0 operator apologised for the two-minute delay before she called back the wife of a man murdered at Wieambilla to tell her there were shooters near her home, an inquest has heard.
On December 12, 2022, four officers were ambushed at a Wains Road property at Wieambilla.
Constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold were shot dead by extremists Gareth, Nathaniel and Stacey Train. Their colleagues Constables Keely Brough and Randall Kirk survived.
The Trains also killed their neighbour Alan Dare before they were gunned down in a shootout with specialist police.
Today, the inquest heard from Townsville-based operator Emma Jean Donald, who took the triple-0 call from Mr Dare's wife.
Kerry Dare told Ms Donald there had been two big bangs, an electrical smell, smoke in the air, and it had been "getting bad".
She also told Ms Donald her husband was going to investigate. The triple-0 call ended shortly after.
About five minutes later Ms Donald received an alert that there were active shooters in the area, and was asked to call Ms Dare back to let her know, and make sure she and her husband were safe.
Ms Donald told the inquest two minutes later, she was asked to confirm she had received the message, and did so, apologising.
Counsel assisting the coroner Ruth O'Gorman questioned the apology.
"Because it took me a while to look at that message and call back the informant," Ms Donald said.
She told the inquest she couldn't remember what she was doing in those two minutes but was possibly on another call.
Ms Donald then spoke to Ms Dare, who said her husband had been shot.
The triple-0 operator said she was aware there was another police job in the area but couldn't see any details about it.
"I didn't know if it was related. As part of our training if we look into a job that isn't related to us we can get in trouble. It can be seen as snooping when it doesn't concern us."
Risk assessment
The inquest also heard from use-of-force expert Senior Sergeant Tracy Louise Bailey.
Senior Sergeant Bailey was asked under cross-examination if the risk assessment would have been different had the constables been told Gareth Train was known to be dangerous, "paranoid and had a profound dislike for police", with a history of accessing unlicensed firearms and an interest in military tactics.
"If all of that information was available to those police, I believe that they would have approached that job much differently and the risk assessment would most likely be at a high-risk," Senior Sergeant Bailey told the inquest.
"Nothing in the information available moved it to a high-risk job, it was just a missing persons job — it seemed very routine."
It was also noted that there were several incidents of gunshots in the 12 months prior to the incident, including one where a bullet landed near a neighbour — but these were not logged.
She told the inquest had these incidents been logged "it may have" changed the risk assessment for attending the property on the day of the shooting.
Last week, the inquest heard from Constable Randall Kirk about his actions after the shooting.
Senior Sergeant Bailey was asked whether Constable Kirk could have moved from his cover to help his colleagues.
"In my opinion, it would be very unlikely that he would have been able to assist those officers without putting himself in significant risk with very limited points of cover between himself and the other constables and not knowing where those offenders are," she said.
Retrieval effort was 'sound'
Stephen Dabinett, a tactical decision-making expert with more than 40 years experience in the police force, reviewed the rescue of Constable Brough and the retrieval of the bodies of Constables McCrow and Arnold.
Mr Dabinett said the team's work was "excellent" and "brilliant".
He was asked whether it was appropriate to retrieve the fallen constables' bodies.
"You have a split-second decision to make in an extreme high-risk situation, not knowing where the offenders are, and the fact the downed police had weapons, ammo and radios, so the decision to recover the bodies was sound," Mr Dabinett told the inquest.
He was also asked about the decision not to recover Mr Dare's body until later.
"I see them differently. I think there was an initial intention to recover everyone, and when they had to withdraw and had tight cordons and they had divided resources a bit bare, then gunshots had started, so it's different circ*mstances," he said.
He rejected that anything should have been done differently.
Mr Dabinett did make several recommendations to improve incident command training.
"It's based on information I had and it's to start a discussion. I would never criticise commanders in what was a very complex situation."
Posted, updated
