The reaction by Victoria Police to the shooting by their officers of a 15-year-old boy in a Melbourne park last night is an appallingly insensitive exercise in self protection and spin.
The Victoria Police media machine has hit the airwaves this morning seeking to justify a case where no less than three of their officers felt it necessary to use firearms on one young man, obviously drug affected or mentally ill or both, wielding two knives.
In among the expressions of sorrow and condolences by the Victoria Police to the family of the young man, are self justifying comments about the conduct of the officers. These comments are clearly designed to defend the name of Victoria Police, before the Coroner or any other investigation has had an opportunity to examine the evidence in the matter.
Assistant Commissioner Tim Cartwright told the media this morning, “We shouldn’t lose members of the community this way.” But then he added, “We train our police members, they’ve foamed him, they talked to him and they’ve done what they can. It’s a dreadful event.”
And Cartwright went on: “At some stage the young bloke has approached the police officers. They backed off and fired shots to no effect. He has continued to approach, at which stage three of the four members then fired at the young man, fatally wounding him. He’s fallen to the ground and died at the scene a very short time after.”
“If we step through the events and the investigation we’ve conducted today, the members did everything they could to talk him down … At the end of the day one of our member’s lives was at risk and the three members saw fit to defend that member. This is not a police failure. It’s a dreadful tragedy, it’s a failure of the community that we get a young man in these circumstances where the ultimate outcome is he violently approached police and he’s shot dead.”
How does Cartwright know that this is the truth of what happened to this young man? How can he pre-judge the critical issue of whether or not the officers involved feared reasonably for their safety? He doesn’t and he can’t — he wasn’t there and all he is doing is seeking to influence public opinion about the role of the police in this tragedy.
Cartwright has no business doing this — it is a matter for independent investigators and the courts, including the Coroner, to determine what happened last night in Northcote.
There are some significant questions that the police need to answer about this case. Firstly are the police trained well enough to deal calmly and compassionately with a person who is drug affected or mentally ill? Second, why is it that in a situation with four police officers against one young man the result is death to the young man?
These are issues that the Coroner and others will need to investigate and find answers to, and the boy’s family and the community have a right to ensure that the Victoria Police do not interfere in that process by continuing to use the media to spin the facts to suit their case.
How appalling that this young kid, and that’s what he is folks, has his life ended under these circumstances. I’m sorry but I don’t buy that three or four armed police officers would be frightened of a kid with two knives no matter what the circumstances. I guess you’re going to be fatally wounded if you’re shot in the chest and the stomach as some media has reported. For god’s sake, why can’t the police aim for the shoulder or leg in these circumstances? Or better still, give them tasers. It’s a disgrace.
It seems to me (but I have heard Victorian police in the media today and may have swallowed too much of their spin) that in trying to do everything short of shoot the kid, the police left it too late to shoot to injure rather than shoot to inflict very serious (and in this case deadly) injuries. If, as some have suggested, they should have shot him in the arms and legs, then this would have needed to happen before officers felt their own safety was in peril (and I’m making a lot of assumptions here but we all have to because none of us were there). Thus they shouldn’t have held off firing at the kid as late as they did.
I was initially concerned about the introduction of taser style weapons and could not personally understand why capsicum spray would not be sufficient. This story answers my question about that issue. I would now suggest that this case will see strong consideration to tasers being introduced for Victorian cops. They are by no means perfectly safe, but a 15 year old stands a much better chance against a taser compared with a hail of bullets.
This incident takes us back to the awful Kennett years when the police shot 13 mentally ill people. Instead of calling for a negotiator or counsellor, they would demand that the person put down the weapon- butter knife in one case and when there was no instant response- shoot.
Maybe we need to explain to Victoria police yet again that when a person is psychotic, hallucinating or delusional – they are unlikely to understand much less respond to a command.They are not disobeying a lawful order but actually not comprehending it.
No doubt the coronial inquiry will be 2 or 3 years hence when only the parents, relatives and friends of this boy remember what happened.
For somebody with so many strong views Greg ii is amazing that you sometimes join heart to head and produce a sound one. It is of course quite ridiculous that police should kill someone in such circumstances. I would be hard to convince that, even if they did have to shoot they couldn’t have wounded him enough to be able to disarm him. Only a little imagination would have put a net or a coil of rope in the police car which could have been deployed against one sad individual. Haven’t they seen epics about gladiators? Alternatively a policeman, carrying a baton or similar weapon, backed by others and with a protective jacket on and headgear which would also protect his face could approach a man with a knife and keep him engaged safely enough while he was otherwise rendered harmless. Killing him is taking eugenics too far.
There is an implicit assumption here that somehow, these oficers wanted to shoot and that everything downstream from that is a justification. Rubbish!
There is a person on the streets, he is threatening the lives of others. Police are called in to do their unfortunate job and he threatens their lives. Drug-crazed? Mentally ill? Probably, but it doesn’t matter. In that fraction of a second that any one one person has to defend themselves against another intent on killing them, there is no time for such niceties. The only people who have a right to comment on this circumstance are those who’ve looked down the wrong end of a knife, or a gun, in the hands of a person intent on murder.
All this self-righteous, arm-chair commentary by those who’ve never been there makes me sick. If you are so sure of yourselves, then volunteer to be the one who goes unprotected and unarmed to talk down the next unknown person who takes to the streets, intent on killing the innocent.