Senior police fear an “emerging gun culture” in Melbourne’s north-west may lead to innocent people being shot after a string of shooting incidents early Friday.

“This presents a considerable risk not only to my members but more particularly with the community,” he said.

Mr Cornelius said unlike gangs, the loyalties of these new criminal enterprises would shift depending on the crimes they were committing.

Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius said armed and newly-forming criminal networks were working together to carry out violent crimes, of joint benefit, as police work to halt the illegal gun trade.

“We’re finding ourselves confronted by people who make a choice to offer serious threats of violence. “Crooks should not think that we’re going to stand by and let criminal activity occur.” Mr Cornelius took on Melbourne’s north-west police portfolio in April 2019 . He said even in that short period of time he’d seen a significant increase in the number of criminals using guns. But he warned against pigeon-holing gun crime as a gang-related problem with “criminal enterprises” increasingly joining forces and changing allegiances to peddle their illegal activities.

“We see the emergence of a gun culture and a preparedness to use firearms in the facilitation of criminal activities,” he said. “There is a real risk innocent people are going to get hurt.” Mr Cornelius’ comments come as the force investigates the shooting of three men in separate suburbs over four hours on Friday morning. Shortly after midnight a junior, undercover police officer shot a 36-year-old Ararat man in the shoulder after he used his silver Toyota Corolla to ram two unmarked police cars the carpark of a Tullamarine McDonald’s.

“I actually can’t tell you a great deal about them because the victims are not assisting us,” Mr Cornelius said. “I think the fact that shooting victims and not prepared to be fulsome in their discussions with us about how they came to be shot tells us something about those individuals.” In June last year, police announced that the rate of firearms offences in Victoria had hit a 10-year high. March was the deadliest month for gun-related homicides in Victoria since January 2009, with five people killed across Melbourne in four unconnected shootings in less than a fortnight.

The following month, three men were killed including two outside Prahran’s Love Machine nightclub and one at Fawkner Park in South Yarra. Then, in January, underworld figure Nabil Maghnie was shot dead following a, escalating dispute at an Epping home. An earlier Age investigation revealed that a brazen new breed of young criminals were taking up arms at unprecedented rates and not afraid to use them.