Queensland Police are refusing to disclose what information they had on the Wieambilla shooters before the attack, as questions mount over the decision to send junior officers to visit individuals with a recent history of hostile and erratic behaviour that was known to police.
In the week since the attack on a remote property in Queensland’s Western Downs that left three victims — including two police officers — and the three perpetrators dead, the state’s police service has given few details about the lead-up to the shooting.
Queensland Police Service commissioner Katarina Carroll said last week that she did not have the “full extent of information” about what was known about Gareth, Nathaniel and Stacey Train before the shooting.
QPS declined to answer questions about whether officers had visited the Wieambilla property or interacted with the Trains recently: “While the matter is currently being investigated, and respecting the sensitivities of the families involved, it would be inappropriate for the QPS to provide further comment at this time.”
Train brothers’ run-ins with the law
New details about the Trains’ online history and alleged previous run-ins with police have come to light.
On Friday, Crikey was first to report on a now-deleted YouTube channel that posted footage from Gareth and Stacey Train in the lead-up to, and even during, the fatal attack.
In several videos and comments, the account’s users alluded to specific interactions with police. One video, posted on Friday morning, uses the logo and theme music for the US television program Cops before naming four Queensland and NSW police officers.
“Let’s get straight to the question that all you boys want answered,” an artificially lowered male voice says.
The voice tells them to ask another named police officer “what happens when you come up on old Daniel here and threaten to pull your pistols”. Gareth Train’s middle name is Daniel, and he appears to refer to himself using it throughout the videos.
The video is accompanied by a paranoid caption: “You attempt to abduct us using contractors. You attempt to intimidate and target us with your Raytheon Learjets and planes. You sent ‘covert’ assets out here to my place in the bush. So what is your play here? To have me and my wife murdered during a state police ‘welfare check’? You already tried that one.”
The account responded to a comment from an obscure American Christian conspiracy theory by referencing previous police interactions: “My phone number & front gate seem to have become popular. ‘Welfare checks’ aka state sponsored murder has started up again.”
Other videos make claims about police corruption, consistent with Gareth Train’s comments on fringe Australian conspiracy websites and forums.
Police had also received reports regarding Gareth’s brother Nathaniel. On Saturday, the ABC reported that he had driven a 4WD filled with loaded guns and knives through a NSW border gate into Queensland last year.
A farmer claims to have seen Nathaniel leaving his car in floodwater after having cut through the border gates using an angle grinder. They claimed he asked them for a lift; rescued guns, a bow and arrow and some “Rambo” knives out of his flooded car; and borrowed a phone to call someone. The farmer said Nathaniel spoke in code on the phone and was subsequently picked up by someone.
“[Nathaniel] said he was an ‘anti-vaxxer’ and had lost his job because he wouldn’t get vaccinated and couldn’t see his family in Queensland,” the farmer told the ABC.
The farmer told the ABC they had spoken to the police about the incident.
What did police know before the attack?
Dr Terry Goldsworthy, an associate professor in criminology at Bond University, said the coronial inquest into the Wieambilla shooting will investigate what caused the Trains to attack police and also the decisions that led to four junior officers going to the remote property that day.
“There’s a lot of unknowns,” he said.
Goldsworthy suggested a number of questions that an inquiry would answer, including:
- What information came from NSW Police regarding the missing persons report about Nathaniel Train that was put out the week before
- Why were two crews (or four police) sent
- Why were only junior officers sent
- What intelligence did police have before the attack
- What was the source of the tip that caused police to attend
- Did the assailants know police were coming
- What were the attackers’ motivations?
Police will be reluctant to speak more until after the officers’ funerals this week, Goldsworthy said, but would probably start to release more information leading up to a coronial inquest.
“It’s going to be an unfolding story,” he said.
I thought it was a bit odd that the majority of “news” on this incident for the first few days seemed to be coming from the police union, rather than the official police sources. It was almost like a PR blitz that was trying to get out in front of any suspicions of police incompetence. But I’m just a cynical old bastard. I’m sure the Queensland cops have improved since Dutton left them. They certainly have a much bigger media coms team these days, as does the union.
I understand that the average IQ of Qld police doubled when Dutton left.
From that comment made at this time I suspect yours is very low too.
The taint of the Jo Bjelke Peterson years is still lurking, and It`s to be hoped kept below the surface but will not take much political corruption to give it life again, the LNP does not have a good record in this over the years, particularly in Queensland.
Note the Qld Police Union head was prominent in the gang of coppers strutting out of the Darwin courthouse when Zachary Rolfe was acquitted. Quite how supporting a cop accused of murder in another state/territory is Qld police union business is unclear. Or very clear.
My immediate question while the incident was unfolding on the limited information we were given was: why would 4 police attend a “routine missing person enquiry”? I felt the the police knew more about this family than they were revealing. And if they did know more why were such inexperienced officers sent?
QPS Commissioner defended the decision to send out 4 police as not unusual — whether that holds up, we’ll find out. One thing that didn’t make it into my piece, Pappinbarra Fox, was the decision to send junior place may have been a result of staffing in region areas (although we’ll see in time whether that will be deemed a mistake)
Presumably “…the decision to send junior place..” was meant to be ‘..junior police’ – one weeks out training college, the other a couple of months..
Considering we now need 4 or 5 officers in full combat gear to walk around the city beat, it doesn’t sound unusual to send 4 on a routine house call.
How about we all stop being Mondays c expert until after the coroner’s court is finalised. No matter what’s discovered at the end of the day the only people to blame are the offenders.
This times ten million. The QPS family – and families – will be grieving enough on Christmas Day as it is.
Just some perspective, please. These men and women are the good guys, who risk their lives daily to keep us safe.
My question us why were the Trains so crazy hostile against the police as to jump into premeditated murder? When the two young police officers were killed some years ago in Sth Yarra, there was a context, a gangland war and a war against the police. Same with Comissioner Winchester in CBR, although that was never explored.
But in this case, there has been no explanation, no context, no reason, nothing but the statement that the trains are conspiratorialists and Christians.
We need more reasons and an explanation, noting the fact the police then mudered the Trains means there will be no trial, no confession and no narrative apart from that given by the police.
We’ll find out more in the coronial inquest I suspect
colonial inquest?
We’ve been in need of one of those for 200+ years
oops!
Did you imagine the Trains who after already exhibiting severe paranoia were going to lay down there guns and surrender. Not by the look of the the bear cat.
We spend billions of dollars militarising our respective State Police Forces, for what ? We are no safer. We have known for years that the biggest threat to our community will come from nutters like these. Man Monis was a prime example of the abhorrent failure of the Criminal Justice System. I would suggest that this matter will have similar characteristics. All the hi tech weaponry often only provides a response after the critical event has commenced. It’s the intelligence systems and planning that are sadly lacking, sometimes with fatal consequences.
Agree, Victoria in the early ’90s had an over armed US like equipped police force being used against those with mental health issues….
Nowadays, set against a background of many RWNJs, white Christians, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers et al. being treated with kid gloves, or even platformed, versus more obvious ‘other’ foreign types promoted negatively in the media.
In the US, police and related agencies have taken years to realise that it’s not Muslims, immigrants, BLM, gangs etc. who are the present danger but homegrown white RWNJs influenced by both mainstream and fringe media; ‘stochastic terrorism’.