'Taken away too soon': Taxi driver shot dead in Darwin rampage during meal break
One of the men shot dead in the bloody rampage in Darwin overnight has been identified as a local taxi driver.
Hassan Baydoun had been a long-time employee of the Blue Taxi Company when he was tragically killed while he was on a meal break.
“Last night in a terrible unprecedented mass shooting, never before seen in our home town, Blue Taxis lost one of their long-term beloved drivers,” it said in a statement.
“Our company is heartbroken and his colleagues are in a state of shock.
“This is not what our city stands for. Someone shot having a meal break while going about their own business.
“We pray that we never have to witness anything like this ever again.”
Mr Baydoun’s cousin Abdallah Salman told the NT News he was a “hard worker, loving, chivalrous, friendly, helpful and always optimistic”.
“He was one of the greatest people I knew, I believe he was taken away too soon from from us, making one less of a true human being in this rotting world,” he said.
The mass shooting that left four dead and one injured spanned across a number of separate locations in Darwin’s CBD on Tuesday night.
Accused gunman Ben Hoffmann, 45, was seen 40km from Darwin in Humpty Doo just an hour and a half before the shooting started to unfold in the capital city.
It started with reports between 5.30pm and 5.52pm that a man had a pump action shotgun and was firing in Finnis Street.
A man’s body was later found at the Palms Motel near Finnis and McMinn Streets.
Witnesses said the alleged gunman was “walking from room to room” and searching for somebody named “Alex”.
Fatal shots were also fired at Gardens Hill Crescent, the Buffalo Club and Jolly Street.
Mr Hoffmann then allegedly tried to enter the Peter McCauley Centre police station, possibly to hand himself in.
He phoned a duty superintendent who did a “magnificent job in negotiating with him” before arrest, NT Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said.
The man was then arrested at the busy Stuart Highway and McMinn Street intersection near where the shootings occurred.
Television footage showed him on the ground after being dragged from under his white dual-cab ute, kicking his legs at officers from the Northern Territory Police Territory Response Group.
Police revealed he was tasered a number of times.
Mr Hoffmann was described as having links to outlaw motorcycle gangs and police said he was released from prison on parole in January after serving at least a year.
He had been wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet.
"He is an individual who is well known to police and has a number of interactions – adverse – with the police force," Mr Kershaw told reporters on Tuesday night.
On Wednesday, Mr Hoffmann’s family released a statement.
The alleged shooter is in hospital, under guard, to assess his mental condition.
The injured woman is also in hospital, in a stable condition.
NT Police have sought forensics and ballistics help from their counterparts in NSW.
With AAP
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