The NSW Police Minister has denied crime is out of control in Sydney as ordinary citizens are warned to look for strange cars in their streets after a spate of mistaken shootings.

At least five seemingly innocent people have been killed on Sydney’s streets in 16 months, in cases police believe alleged criminals got the wrong target.

Two suspected mistaken-identity shootings happened this week, with a man gunned down at a duplex in Merrylands on Wednesday and a uni student shot in his bed at Glen Alpine on Monday.

NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley said the constant rotation of new criminals popping up was like a game of Whack-A-Mole, but she rejected that police were out of their depth.

“I do not accept that this is out of control because, as I said, we will not surrender our streets to organised crime gangs. Not now, not ever,” Catley said.

“The NSW Police are working around the clock to address these issues. And they’re not going to stop.”

Acting NSW Premier Prue Car insisted the situation was under control.

“NSW Police are on top of this,” she said on Thursday afternoon.

“The government will continue to resource them and do whatever is required to make sure we are on top of this organised crime.”

A ute in the driveway at the scene of the fatal shooting in Merrylands West. Photo: AAP

Jason Box, the commander of a taskforce tackling organised violence, warned the community to stay on guard.

“We ask that people be vigilant if they see a car that shouldn’t be in their street, let us know if they see people sitting in a car, let us know if they see people driving at night,” he told Sydney radio 2GB.

“We have 60 police in uniform, driving around 24/7 at targeted areas … plus all the investigators and the intelligence.”

He said organised crime in Sydney was under control from afar — including leaders making calls from overseas — making law enforcement’s job difficult.

“The reality is they are reckless.”

NSW Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane said Sydney was supposed to be a safe, secure and free city.

“It doesn’t feel like that anymore… people are concerned, they’re frighened,” she said.

A car containing several people pulled up alongside a Merrylands West home on Bruce Street about 3.15pm on Wednesday.

CCTV footage widely shared and under police investigation shows an Audi pulling alongside the house as a passenger leant out the rear window to open fire.

Shots struck the victim, who is yet to be formally identified, moments after he arrived with a male resident and two young children.

While the home owners were very well known to police for organised crime links, the victim was not, Detective Superintendent Simon Glasser said.

The occupants’ children were in the home at the time, he said, calling the shooting “highly dangerous and reckless”.

A day earlier, multiple attackers entered a two-storey home in Glen Alpine, near Campbelltown in south-west Sydney, about 3.40am on Tuesday.

They shot 23-year-old Marco Tapia dead in his bedroom as his family were home.

The young man was not known to police and had nothing more than a traffic offence on his record. His killers are still at-large.

Police confirmed detectives were exploring the possibility the attackers were mistaken in their targets on both occasions.

They are also investigating whether the shootings were linked.

An online post in the wake of Tapia’s death suggested an ongoing feud may be connected to the incidents.

An exiled alleged underworld identity posted to social media early on Tuesday that the perpetrators had mistaken their target.

”Popped the wrong person. Didn’t even get the right house,” Iziah Utai, alleged co-founder of the Coconut Cartel, wrote.

He returned on Wednesday to add: ”RIP Marco. #innocentvictim”.

The Alameddine network, a notorious crime family, and the Coconut Cartel, an emerging crime-for-hire network, have allegedly become embroiled in a feud, spilling into shootings across Sydney in recent months.

‘Wrong’ deaths pile up

• May 2025: Plumber John Versace, 23, was allegedly executed in his driveway in Condell Park, in south-west Sydney. Police treated the death as a case of mistaken identity.
• June 2025: Luke Manassa, 21, was stabbed outside a house in Pemulwuy, in Sydney’s west, allegedly by two masked assailants armed with machetes waiting in the driveway. Manassa’s family were adamant he was not the intended victim, and police said he was not known to authorities.
• February 2026: Grandfather Chris Baghsarian was kidnapped from his North Ryde home, in Sydney’s north-west, and police declared criminals had likely got the wrong man. The 85-year-old was allegedly killed at a makeshift stronghold in Dural, on Sydney’s northern outskirts, before his body was found dumped nearby
• September 2026: University student Marco Tapia, 23, was shot dead in his bed while family members slept at the home in Glen Alpine, near Campbelltown in south-west Sydney. Police believe he had no links to organised crime and was only known to them because of a traffic matter — no one has been charged over the death.
• September 2026: Just a day later, a man in his 40s was shot in the doorway of a home in Merrylands, in Sydney’s west. Police were quick to state it could be another mistaken identity hit.

-with AAP