A Perth bikie who jailed over a daylight shooting was “clearly inexperienced” and “not a good shot” when he took aim at a rival motorcycle gang member, according to a magistrate.
Joshua Hadomi Da Cruz Joaquim was sentenced to six years and 10 months in jail in Perth District Court on Friday, charged with firing a gun and unauthorised possession of a firearm over the 2023 incident in Baldivis.
The court was told Da Cruz Joaquim drove in a convoy of four vehicles to Amazon Drive around 3pm on October acting on an instruction they received through text: “Get that c—, and do it properly.”
The men approached the home in their cars and boxed in an Uber the intended target was about to enter, before Da Cruz Joaquim exited the front passenger door and fired about six times at the man.
In court on Friday, Judge Lindsay Fox was scathing of Da Cruz Joaquim’s marksmanship.
“Purely from the footage, you give the impression of being an inexperienced shooter,” Fox said.
“You seem to slightly struggle with the recoil of the firearm when firing the first two or three shots. Your arm appears to be forced down after each shot. Your stance doesn’t impress me as someone who’s had any proper training with firearms.
“You did not hit [the victim], even at that short range, being the width of the road and the verge, before he jumped the fence. It can be a hard thing to hit a moving target … but the fact that you did not [hit] the victim was not for want of trying on your part.”
Fox pointed out that while the men all fled the scene shortly after the incident, Da Cruz Joaquim sent texts bragging about the incident.
He said it was not clear Da Cruz Joaquim fully grasped the seriousness of what he had done.
“I’m not entirely convinced that you truly appreciate how serious it is to fire six rounds from a pistol when you are not a good shot, in a suburban street in the middle of the afternoon,” Fox said.
“You and your associates certainly set out to harm [the victim] at the very least, but you also couldn’t care less about anyone else in the process.”
He was sentenced to six years and 10 months jail, backdated to October last year.
Da Cruz Joaquim is one of three men who were charged over the shoot-out, which was characterised at the time as “laughable” by police.
Acting Gang Crime Squad boss, Detective Senior Sergeant Bevan Roe said at the time that footage of the incident was unintentionally funny.
“If it wasn’t such a serious incident you’d probably describe some aspects as laughable,” he said.
“It [was] pretty chaotic … it [was] not a highly coordinated or surgical attack in any way, this is just four car loads of bad guys firing shots in a suburban street.”
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