Queensland siege ends after suspected police killer shot dead

Australian police on Tuesday (30 May) shot dead a man suspected of killing a Queensland police officer the previous day. The suspect, identified as Rick Maddison, was killed following an hours' long standoff at a farmhouse in Seventeen Mile, north-west of Gatton.

Maddison, believed to have been armed with a machine gun, allegedly killed Senior Constable Brett Forte on Monday when the police tried to pull over his car in the Lockyer Valley Region. Three other officers were injured in the shooting.

Following the shooting incident, police declared an exclusion zone around the property where the suspect was reportedly hiding. Maddison, who was holed up in the house throughout Monday night and early Tuesday morning, charged at the police and opened fire at them just after 11am local time (BST). He was shot at least three times in the chest in retaliatory fire, Australia's 9News reported.

"As a result of a police incident at an address at Ringwood in the Lockyer Valley, a male person who is the subject of our inquiries... has exited the building in which he was in," Assistant Commissioner Tony Wright said on Tuesday.

"He has been challenged by police, at that point in time he has fired at police, specialist police have returned fire, the male person has been shot and... been declared deceased at the scene."

A police source told the news channel that on Monday, an armed man wanted in some other criminal offences got out of his car while police were chasing him and shot officer Forte. He then drove down a dirt road towards the farmhouse.

The wanted man also fired at a police helicopter while entering the farmhouse, the source added, noting that the slain suspect was believed to have been wanted in multiple armed robbery cases.