Australian official: Only 2 police officers were on duty at Hanukkah event attacked by terrorists

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns says there were only two police officers on duty at the Sydney Hanukkah event where two terrorists killed 15 people and injured dozens.

“The police were tasked with being on the site during the festival. My understanding is that there were two in the park during or at the beginning of the shooting, the assassinations,” Minns tells Sky News Australia.

“And there were police in the vicinity, so a patrol car pulled up within moments of the firing beginning,” he says.

Witnesses have said the two gunmen opened fire for as long as ten minutes, shooting into the crowd of families attending the event to mark the Jewish holiday.

Some 1,000 people were in attendance at the open-air event.

“I think it’s important to note that police obviously when the shooting began did engage the shooters and there’s two in critical condition in NSW hospitals,” he says.

“We have several police officers that engaged with sidearms from 50 meters away, firing with someone who had a long-arm and a tactical advantage over NSW Police,” Minns says. “So they did engage and they did shoot both of the offenders, killing one of them.”

Minns says the police force is now gathering information on the locations of other nearby officers at the time the attack began.