NSW Police charge 19-year-old with intent to murder

The state’s anti-gang detectives have charged a 19-year-old Sydney man they allege attempted to kill a relative of the Alameddine crime family as he collected his teenage daughter from school in the city’s south-west.

The 44-year-old and his 15-year-old daughter fled their ute about 3pm on June 9, when a gunman pointed a handgun at the man, sitting in his parked vehicle in the drive of a school in Fairfield. The gun is believed to have jammed and neither were injured.

CCTV footage from the scene shows the father and daughter escaping on foot, running for cover as the gunman left the scene.

The targets of the attack are relatives of the notorious Alameddine crime family, though neither are believed to have any criminal history, nor involved in organised crime. They are believed to have been targeted simply because they are related to organised crime figures.

The investigation of the botched assassination attempt was handed to detectives under Taskforce Falcon, the NSW Police initiative launched in May 2025 to confront escalating gangland violence across Sydney.

Detectives stopped David Kulitapa, 19, on Wednesday afternoon as he was driving in Sans Souci, as police raided his Cronulla home, allegedly seizing a knife, illicit drugs and electronic devices.

Kulitapa was taken to Sutherland Police Station where he was charged with two counts of attempting to shoot a person with intent to murder, installing and using a tracking device to find an object, possessing or using a banned weapon without a permit, dealing prohibited drugs, knowingly directing the activities of a criminal group, and supplying a prohibited drug greater than a small quantity.

He spent Wednesday night behind bars ahead of appearing at Sutherland Local Court on Thursday.