Sydney student killed in ‘targeted attack’ by home invaders

A 23-year-old university student was killed after armed intruders entered his family home in Sydney, in what police are now calling a “targeted attack”.Marco Tapia was asleep at the Glen Alpine property when the home invaders shot him. Police arrived at about 3.40am on Tuesday. Tapia died at the scene.Campbelltown city police acting superintendent Gretchen Atkins said officers were still trying to establish what happened. “We believe at this point in time it is a targeted attack,” she said. “That’s all the information we have been able to gather at this point in time, it is really early stages of the investigation.”The attackers had left before police arrived. Ms Atkins said there were multiple offenders and that investigators had so far established little about them.Tapia was a third-year biomedical engineering student at the University of Technology Sydney. He had recently received an award from the university for his work on volumetric muscle loss.His family described him as studious and selfless. He also volunteered with Engineers Without Borders, the family said. Tapia was also a Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitor and trained with the Born Ready MMA team in Campbelltown. “We lost a real one today,” the team said in an Instagram post. “Rest easy, Marco. One of us forever.”He had no known links to organised crime, his family said. “He was innocent,” said a family member who asked not to be identified, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.Police said his only known contact with them was over a traffic offence. Another relative said Tapia “didn’t deserve this”.His family were inside the house when the shooting happened. They were assisting police with the investigation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. Hours after the attack, police were examining a social media post that appeared to refer to the shooting. Underworld figure Iziah Utai posted a message after the shooting with rapper Ay Huncho. “Popped the wrong person. Didn’t even get the right house,” it read, allegedly referring to a case of mistaken identity. Police confirmed they were aware of the post and were considering all possible leads. Detectives were investigating whether the shooting was connected to conflicts between organised crime groups in the city. Police are also looking into an abandoned car found on Rose Payton Drive in nearby Minto which investigators believe may be connected to Tuesday’s shooting.“A young man has lost his life today and that’s obviously just tragic,” Ms Atkins said. “There were family who were home and, as I said, they’re assisting us and being very, very helpful. It’s an active crime scene and we are obviously waiting for a lot of that information from our forensics who are on the scene.”The killing is the latest in a series of attacks on people with no apparent criminal links.On Saturday, Emad Alameddine, 28, was critically injured in a shooting at his home in western Sydney. He might have been targeted because of his alleged connection to the Alameddine crime family, police said, although he was not believed to have been involved in criminal activity.