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A MAN has been charged and another remains in hospital under police guard after a robbery and armed confrontation outside a Chinese consulate in Sydney's inner west.

The pair allegedly burst into a hotel in Missenden Road, Camperdown, armed with a gun and a hammer at 1.30am (AEST) on Friday.

Police confirmed the men confronted staff and demanded cash.

One of the men, aged 32, was arrested as he left the venue. But his alleged accomplice, 27, fled from a side door and was chased by police into a nearby laneway, police say.

There, he allegedly exchanged gunshots with police before climbing a razor wire fence into the Chinese consulate in Dunblane St, injuring himself in the process.

Police arrested the man just after 7am, after a five-hour operation which closed surrounding streets.

He was taken to the nearby Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, where on Friday night he remained under police guard and was being treated for serious cuts to his arms and legs.

The 32-year-old was charged with robbery in company and being carried in conveyance taken without consent.
He is due to appear at Parramatta Bail Court today.

A critical incident investigation team will conduct an investigation into the operation, Assistant Commissioner Mark Murdoch said.

''During the course of that pursuit shots were fired,'' he told reporters outside Newtown Police Station.

''How many shots were fired and who fired them is still a matter for investigation.''

Camperdown resident Michelle Brown, an ABC journalist, said she was woken by the sound of gunfire that she at first thought was fireworks.

''I was woken by two loud bangs,'' she told ABC Radio.

''There was a pause and then another two loud bangs.''

A witness testifying in the murder trial of Laurence Alvin Lovette Jr. has made a startling claim about the victim's last moments.

Raleigh local station WRAL reports that Jayson McNeil testified Lovette told him that University of North Carolina student Eve Carson asked him to pray with her before she was murdered.

"Before (Lovette) even shot her, he explained, she was saying, 'Let's pray,'" McNeil said, according to WRAL. "She wanted them to pray together."

In March 2008, prosecutors say that Lovette and Demario Atwater kidnapped Carson, drove her to various ATMs to withdraw money and then shot her five times, killing the former student body president, according to WRAL.

Atwater pleaded guilty last year to crimes connected to the killing and is currently serving two life sentences.

ABC reports that Carson's body was found in the middle of a Chapel Hill street the same day she was murdered.

Lovette is also accused of killing Abhijit Mahato, a Duke University student whose body was found in his apartment, according to CBS News. A judge has ruled that evidence from that case can be used in the Carson trial, according to the Herald Sun.