In short:
A potential sixth innocent victim in the space of a year and a half has been killed in relation to simmering tensions in Sydney's underworld.
It comes just a day another casualty in the crossfire of the city's gangland war, Marco Tapia, was shot dead in a case of mistaken identity.
Police believe Wednesday's victim was a business associate of an organised crime figure returning from a school pick up.
The brazen murder of an underworld figure's suspected business associate possibly marks the sixth innocent victim of the city's sprawling gangland war in just over a year, and the second this week.
The man in his 40s, police believe, was "likely" ambushed after picking up children from a nearby school.
Fatally shot in broad daylight at a home with two children inside, he is the 41st murder attributed to underworld violence since shootings began in 2020 over the city's drug trade.
"Tragically, that [mistaken identity] is a possibility that the wrong person has been shot by these offenders," Superintendent Simon Glasser told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.
The victim's associate is "very well known to police" and detectives believe the shooting stems from feuding organised crime groups.
The death marks another tragic chapter in the tit-for-tat violence that has been plaguing Sydney for years and continues a disturbing pattern of civilians caught in the crossfire.
Just a day earlier, university student Marco Tapia died after masked men stormed his Glen Alpine home and shot him dead.
In the wake of Mr Tapia's death and hours before the Merrylands West attack, NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said the taking of "innocent life" was "completely unacceptable".
Underworld fugitive Iziah Utai was quick to take to social media to gloat that the attackers: "popped the wrong person, didn't even get the right house".
Iziah Utai's self-proclaimed "Coconut Cartel" is openly feuding with the Alameddine crime family, and police believe the two gangs are responsible for a recent surge in violence.
Clumsy crooks and death by association
The mistakes from bungling hit-men over the last year, police alleged, range from wrong addresses, similar names, appearance or death by association.
Gilbert Shino died in a hail of bullets leaving a Forest Lodge pub in August 2025 in the company of a "DLASTHR" associate aware of threats to his life.
Beloved entrepreneur Luke Manassa, 21, was allegedly stabbed to death by two teenagers after being mistaken for an in-law involved in the current organised crime conflict.
Similarly, police have made clear that plumber John Versace was anything but a gangster when he was gunned down at his family home in May 2025.
Others like Bankstown mother Thi Kim Tran April last year have been targeted due to their relationships.
Ms Tran was taken, stripped naked in the street and shot in the head by what police allege are the underlings of a Vietnamese crime boss attempting to lure her husband out of hiding.
In February, two men were charged over the alleged kidnapping murder of 85-year-old Sydney man Chris Baghsarian in a case of mistaken identity, with the intended abduction target understood to be a man living nearby.
Several people remain before the courts on that matter.
So worrying is the state of the city's criminal milieu that Premier Chris Minns cancelled some of his plans while on a trade mission in India to receive a briefing on the latest shootings.
Police Minister Yasmin Catley, at the same press conference, detailed the model being used by crime networks in the city.
"Bringing in people who are just happy to commit a crime without understanding the consequences, and here we've seen again, allegedly, that we have somebody who is [targeted] from mis-identification," she said.
Assistant Commissioner Scott Cook has previously told the ABC Sydney's gangland scene has entered a new era of "disorganised crime" with underworld figures, who are often offshore, putting contracts out for murder and intimidation on the open market.
The jobs are increasingly being accepted by inexperienced young people with devastating and unintended consequences.
