Road rage ... Parked cars smashed up in Miller Street, Epping. Credit:Matthew Ondarchie ‘‘He made a decision to go down and find out what was actually happening. At that stage, it was a dispute, he wasn’t aware there was the level of violence involved that unfolded,’’ Mr Fontana said. ‘‘He’s confronted by a woman that’s obviously been very emotive and agitated at the time and was armed with a weapon and she was approaching him. He had to defend himself.’’ The woman is believed to be from a regional area and aged in her 30s. She was allegedly walking towards the sergeant with a knife when she was shot. Mr Fontana said in the moments before the shooting, the woman dropped a bag, which the sergeant had believed contained knives. She then armed herself with a knife and when a man, believed to be from Preston and known to the woman, tried to take it from her, she slashed him across the face.

Paramedics were called to the scene at 12.40pm. Ambulance Victoria spokesman Paul Bentley said paramedics treated the woman for a gunshot wound, and she was taken to Royal Melbourne Hospital in a stable condition. The injured man was taken to the Northern Hospital in a stable condition. A witness named Rhett told radio 3AW the woman had deliberately slammed into a parked car with a man sitting inside before grabbing an axe to attack the other vehicle. She's put an axe through the window on the passenger side (of the other vehicle)...Then she's grabbed out a long knife and started swinging it at him.

"She's lined him up and drove right into him," the witness, named only as Rhett, told the radio station. "She's put an axe through the window on the passenger side [of the other vehicle] ... Then she's grabbed out a long knife and started swinging it at him." When the man got out of the car, Rhett said the woman threatened him with the knife before police arrived. "The policeman came round and drew his gun and said 'Drop the knife, drop the knife.' He gave her plenty of time to drop the knife. ''I thought, 'Oh, this isn't going to end well.'"

Rhett said the woman was shot in the leg after cutting the man with the knife and was later taken away in an ambulance. "She tried to swing at police," Rhett said. "She [was] screaming when she went off [in the ambulance]" A Miller Street business owner told The Age police had blocked off Miller Street between Cooper and Rufus streets. She said there were a number of police cars at the scene.

The latest incident follows a police shooting in Shepparton on July 29, when a 23-year-old woman was shot. Mr Fontana said he was concerned about the large number of cases involving armed offenders and police, including two recent police shootings and the stabbing of a police officer on the weekend. ‘‘Unfortunately, we’re invariably confronted by these sorts of scenarios on a regular basis. On many occasions we manage to thwart them. It’s a real concern to us and often our members are left with no option but to use some sort of force to protect themselves or others,’’ he said. An internal police review of the shooting will determine if tasers or capsicum spray could have been used to subdue the woman. Biljana Stavreski, the owner of Northern Yoga and Therapy Centre on Miller Street, said she did not hear any gunshots even though her business was located near the shooting scene.

However, she said police had swarmed through the area and had blocked off Miller Street. She said traffic congestion had been a frustration for motorists, particularly at the corner of Miller and Cooper streets, in recent years due to the construction of new housing. "That intersection has gone from being a very quiet part of town to being excruciatingly painful to get through," she said. "People's patience is wearing thin around that area because they’ve built up thousands and thousands of houses and estates but they haven't changed the roads since the 1950s. People can’t get in and out of their homes. The road is chockers. It sometimes takes 20 minutes to get through that intersection." With Megan Levy