Ariel Bombara told ‘it’s up to you’ by police about attending active Floreat shooting scene
Those are the nervous questions Ariel Bombara can be heard asking a triple-zero operator while her father was shooting her mother’s best friend and her daughter.
The harrowing call – during which gun shots and screaming can be heard – was played to a packed courtroom on Thursday at a coronial inquest into the deaths of Jennifer Petelczyc, 59, and her 18-year-old daughter, Gretl, on May 24, 2024.
Jennifer and Gretl were gunned down by Mark Bombara, a 63-year-old man who, fuelled with rage over a recent separation, was looking for his wife Rowena and daughter Ariel, who had both fled the family’s Mosman Park home and gone into hiding.
It is believed they were Bombara’s targets and that he attended the Petelczycs’ Floreat home looking for them, killing the women “in proxy” for the mother and daughter he could not find.
Questions were also raised about Bombara suffering from a brain injury after two strokes and a 10-centimetre cyst that was found during a scan.
But the most damning evidence presented during the five-day inquest was about police’s handling of concerns raised by Ariel about her father’s escalating behaviour.
On Thursday, WA Police Commander Jason Longhorn outlined a catalogue of failures made by officers during multiple triple-zero calls as the incident was unfolding.
Longhorn said he could “not categorically say” there was not a radio failure that delayed dispatchers from sending officers to the Floreat home after triple-zero calls were made by both Gretl, from inside the home, and Ariel, who was with her mother at a separate location.
The inquest previously heard how police operators were slow to answer calls from Gretl, who had her hands tied and appeared to be hiding from Bombara, who was holding a gun to her mother’s head.
Ariel Bombara’s triple-zero call on May 24, 2024
[Screaming]
Ariel: “It’s an emergency, he’s got a gun. He’s just shot someone I think. It’s my father.“
Operator: “Who’s been shot?“
Ariel: “Jenny Petelczyc. She lives at the house. My father, Mark Bombara has a gun. It’s a domestic violence situation.“
Operator: “Are you at the house yourself?“
Ariel: “No he’s showed up at their house.“
Operator: “What’s the name of your father? What’s the name of the female involved?“
Ariel: “Jenny Petelczyc.“
Operator: “How do you spell her surname”
Ariel: “P-e-t-e-l-c-z-y-c.“
Operator: “Who is Jenny to your dad?“
Ariel: “She’s my mum’s best friend and my father has turned up there with a gun …”
Operator: “Where are you at the moment?”
Ariel: [Provides address].
Operator: “The job’s already on. Who called you?”
Ariel: “Jenny called my mum and said Mark just showed up and left, and then he came back, and I heard her say, ‘put the gun down’ and then I heard gun shots.”
Operator: “OK, just putting in some further details OK? How many shots did you hear?”
Ariel: “Two.” [Crying]
Operator: “Just putting in further details OK? I’m still here. Do we know why he went to the house at all in the first place?”
Ariel: “[inaudible] from a domestic abuse situation. She is going to leave him … they’re going through a divorce. He thought that my mother was staying with her best friend. And so he was looking for her.”
Operator: “So where is your mum? Is she with you?”
Ariel: “Yes.”
Operator: “OK, so the job’s on there. If you get a call from a private number it will be from a policeman.”
Ariel: “So what do we do now?”
Operator: “Just stay where you at the moment, police will most likely be in contact with you. Just keep an eye on your phone.”
Ariel: “OK so we have to stay here, we can’t go and see if jenny’s OK?”
Operator: “That’s up to you, just answer your phone if police call.”
The inquest was also told the incident was initially categorised as a priority 2, which at the time was described as “immediate threat”, whereas a priority 1 incident was described as “imminent threat to life”.
That was despite Ariel telling an operator on multiple occasions that “someone has been shot”.
Longhorn said he had reviewed the call and determined himself that it should have been made a priority 1.
“Yes, knowing the outcome of this incident – when I reviewed the call, the information that was provided, it was more than likely a priority 1,” he said.
“However it is a complex environment taking a call, the call-taker was following the knowledge base … the call-taker was working through the process.
“[But] that call-taker has excluded or not heard – overlooked some of the information provided.”
Eight officers faced disciplinary action after WA Police undertook an internal inquiry after the incident.
“I don’t think people know how they’re going to respond to a situation like this until it happens,” Longhorn said of the response to Ariel’s call.
“It does seem there’s a gap there … the call back later on is the same call-taker, and he didn’t provide the best advice [but] everyone on the day turned up to do the best they could.”
The inquest continues.
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