The horrific moment an injured kangaroo was shot by a police officer seconds before a child passed by was captured in graphic footage by a shocked onlooker in Mernda, Melbourne.

In the video, which has been viewed over 85,000 times on Facebook, the police officer is seen aiming his weapon at the animal, despite being told by his colleague that a child is approaching on a scooter.

“There’s a kid coming, sergeant,” a voice is heard saying. But without hesitation, the officer fires his weapon at the animal anyway, and seconds later the child can be seen zooming past the scene on the sidewalk.

The kangaroo does not die instantly after being shot in the torso and can be seen squirming in a pool of blood and twitching as the clip ends.

Hash Tropoja, who filmed the incident, told the Daily Mail Australia he did not doubt whether the kangaroo should be put down as it already had a broken hip, but says the officer should have waited for the child to pass first as the bullet could have ricocheted.

“There’s no question that the poor animal needed to be put down,” Tropoja said. “The bullet could have rebounded on to incoming traffic. The bullet had the potential to ricochet off the concrete.”

The police had reportedly arrived at the scene around 30 minutes beforehand and “should have blocked the area off,” Tropoja said.

In his Facebook post, the witness called the police officer’s actions “reckless.”

“OK so I get that this is what needs to be done when there is an injured animal on the side of the road but I find it so careless and reckless that this police officer was able to shoot this kangaroo as a kid was passing by on his scooter,” Tropoja wrote.

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“After being told by his colleague that ‘there is a kid coming’ he still went on to shoot the kangaroo. This is one of the most careless and reckless acts I’ve seen in a long time. There’s so many different things that could have gone wrong. Thankfully nothing did,” he added.

Victoria police did not comment on the incident.