Police have been extensively searching bushland adjacent to a popular drag race venue for clues after a bikie boss was shot dead on Saturday night.
Rebels boss Nick Martin, 51, was killed by a presumed sniper at the Perth Motorplex and with police still chasing the perpetrator, a $1million reward has been offered for information in a bid to lure some answers from the Perth underworld.
On Tuesday, several homicide squad detectives were seen scouring dense bushland on the outskirts of the raceway, The West Australian reports.
The urgency of the grid search around the exterior of the raceway shows how desperate detectives are to find the killer before any further violence erupts.
Murdered Rebels bikie boss Nick Martin (pictured left) wife his wife Amanda Martin, who cradled him in her arms after he was shot on Saturday
The Perth Motorplex (pictured) on Saturday night was the venue where Bikies boss Nick Martin was killed by a presumed sniper
Any items of interest located in the dense bushland were marked with a red flag and then recorded by detectives at the scene.
Some of the items examined included a water bottle and a used cigarette packet.
The exercise has been arduous thanks to the level of rubbish recovered, including a pair of discarded gardening gloves, a beer bottle, gum packets, disintegrating food wrappers and water bottles.
The working theory of police is that senior Rebels bikie Martin was shot at long-range while attending a drag racing event in Kwinana Beach on Saturday.
Former bikie Ricky Chapman, 31, the boyfriend of Martin’s step-daughter, was also wounded and underwent surgery on Monday, with a bullet recovered from his body likely to assist the investigation.
Police on the scene (pictured above) following the brazen public attack which saw Bikies boss Nick Martin killed
Nick Martin at the Rebels clubhouse (pictured). The bikie boss was murdered in public on Saturday in front of his family at a packed out drag race
An unrelated five-year-old boy sitting on the lap of Martin’s wife was grazed by a bullet fragment but did not require medical treatment.
The brazen public slaying has sparked fears of a gang war and prompted WA Police to launch Operation Ravello, a taskforce of more than 100 officers including gang squad and homicide detectives.
Detectives conducted further raids overnight, including at the Rebels’ Bibra Lake clubhouse, after searching the Mongols and Hells Angels premises over the weekend.
‘They are leaving no stone unturned. They want to find the person who is responsible for this killing,’ Police Minister Michelle Roberts told reporters.
‘We don’t want to see this played out on the streets or suburbs of Western Australia and we want to bring that person to justice and do it swiftly.’
Bikies boss Nick Martin (pictured left) was the victim of a targeted murder on Saturday
The Perth Motorplex on Kwinana Beach (pictured above) is a popular venue for drag race fans
Martin’s widow Amanda believes her husband’s killing was meticulously planned, with the sound of engines drowning out the gun shot – which detectives told her came from about 300 metres away.
Police have promised to ‘take the fight back’ to outlaw motorcycle gangs.
‘I can assure you that all gangs, whether they are involved in this or not, are going to be seeing a lot more attention from WA Police and our partners,’ WA Police Assistant Commissioner Brad Royce said.
In March of 2011, Martin was in shot in the arm outside his home. A Rock Machine bikie gang member was sentenced to more than six years in prison over the shooting a year later.
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The 51-year-old Rebels Outlaw Motorcycle Gang boss died at the scene in front of horrified families and children, as his wife tried relentlessly to keep him awake.
‘He threw his arms up and he said, ”babe, I’ve been shot”,’ Amanda Martin told The West Australian on Monday.
Ms Martin said she knew immediately he didn’t have long left, and simply dragged him on top of her and did what she could to keep him calm in his final moments.
‘I was kissing him and I was trying to give him CPR, but he never opened his eyes again, he was already gone,’ she said.
Martin’s stepdaughter Stacey Schoppe (pictured together, with her mum, left) was just centimetres away from the chaos and was nursing a friend’s young son when she started to realise he had been shot
