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Police Shooting in Townsville · The Slippery Slope

• 0:12
  Hi, I'm Jay Fallon. Thanks for listening to the
• 0:14
  Slippery Slope. So one thing I'm going to say
• 0:18
  something, and this is something I don't, I'm going to do
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  something. This is something I don't do a
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  lot of and that is actually complement the Queensland Police
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  Service in the offices involved in this incident.
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  And even though it was an incident which resulted in the
• 0:37
  in the shooting of a of a man in QLD, I'm reading through the
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  story thinking you you can tell that these guys, these officers,
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  they they weren't there. They were there to to do their
• 0:52
  duty. They were trying to avoid.
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  Seems to me after reading this, they were out there to avoid
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  what actually happened there and they put everything into, I
• 1:02
  think, trying to avoid this outcome, but it seems like it
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  was possibly virtually unavoidable.
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  What else could you do? And you know, like I said, I'm
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  very rarely, very rarely these days sitting there complimenting
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  police in Queensland. But I've got to take my hat off
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  to these officers and also empathise with what they've gone
• 1:35
  through here. And you can see the actions that
• 1:38
  they've taken and why and how, why.
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  I'm saying that they were obviously trying to avoid this
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  outcome that actually happened. So a few days ago I'll bring
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  this story up so you can see a few days ago at Townsville Man,
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  the Townsville Man was was shot dead by police.
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  I'll bring this story up. 26 year old Townsville man has been
• 2:00
  shot dead by police. So please write to me as
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  residents an hour after they were called to form a mental
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  health check. Well, that's pretty routine.
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  It's pretty standard being asked to perform the mental health
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  check, so mental welfare cheque by police resulted in the
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  shooting death. Police were called to amount
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  Louisa Townsville address just after 12:10 AM on Sunday, with
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  two officers arriving at the residence an hour later,
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  Queensland Police Service said in a statement.
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  The man allegedly advanced at the attending officers with a
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  knife before being shot, QPS confirmed.
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  At the time of the shooting, 6 police officers were present and
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  This is why I these are some of the reasons why I believe you
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  know they will. Obviously they knew that there
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  was a threat. They knew that there was
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  something. This was something serious and
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  they weren't. It wasn't just about, hey,
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  having a couple of people there. There's nothing blase about it.
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  You got six officers. That's really, especially in a
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  place where towns, that's a lot of resources to send to one's
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  mental health check job, but obviously they're taking it
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  seriously. I think so.
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  Queensland Police. So Queensland Police said the
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  officers performed first aid over there.
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  Off efforts were unsuccessful. Acting Chief Superintendent
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  Chris Lawson said police attempted to use a Taser to
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  disarm him. I heard this initially when the
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  story first came out and it really pricked my ears because
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  that's not the procedure. You don't.
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  If someone is presented an eye, you're a police officer and some
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  someone presents a knife, you don't go for the Taser to go for
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  the gun and that. That's just, that's just
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  procedure because there's certain people overlook this.
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  It's so easy to kill with a knife, you know.
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  There's footage out there, you can see footage and people
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  killing with a knife. Remember there's a I'd seen the
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  footage, the chapter got killed in Brisbane.
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  Couple of young followers, sparring, having a bit of a
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  fight. One of them's got a little, just
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  a tiny little knife, straight jab, straight out, grabs, hits a
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  big fella right in the neck. Just very quick, big, full of
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  goes down. It's slashed his artery there
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  and seven seconds later he's bled out.
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  It is so quick, so easy to kill with a knife.
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  You. You it's not recommended to
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  pelletizer. You're supposed to pull your gun
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  last time. You know, I've been out for a
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  bit over year now, but I've been out of GD for a long time.
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  But like, you know, it was never the procedure that you pull your
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  Taser. If you if you're presented
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  someone's presented a knife, you, you pull your gun.
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  And This is why I'm saying it seems obvious.
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  It seems like these officers were trying.
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  They were their and they were trying to avoid this very
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  outcome. But acting Chief Superintendent
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  addressed questions during a press conference on Sunday where
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  he was asked why it took police now to respond.
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  They're in Townsville, Richie. We were responding to a number
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  of incidents and as a result of priorities and police being
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  available, the first available unit got there at 1:15.
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  I'm look, like I said, I don't know if I have a lot of sympathy
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  for QBs as a whole, the organisation, but these
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  officers, especially these officers at the moment in
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  Townsville, they're they're being run ragged, ragged because
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  of the youth crime. So you know, it's it really,
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  come on. It's understandable.
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  It is understandable. You got to have a bit of a bit
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  of empathy for what police are going through up there, he says.
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  It's understood that family members were present at the home
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  during the time of the call and shooting and were attempting to
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  deescalate the situation. The matter is under
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  investigation by ESC there. So the the the two main reasons
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  why I'm saying I'm, I can see, I can understand.
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  And it seems to me that police were trying their best to avoid
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  the situation. If there were six officers there
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  at the time of the shooting, you know, they they weren't just
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  looking at this, OK. It's just another mental health.
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  It's just another check, OK. Something serious is going on.
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  More resources, especially in the town like Townsville, it's
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  it's a big deal to have 6 copies of one job like that and then
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  for them to attempt to Taser someone when there's already a
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  knife presence It it I think it shows that there is
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  consideration that hey you know we this is something we want to
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  avoid. We want to avoid taking a life
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  and in the end it seems like, well, and I'm probably reading a
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  lot into it that were the backs against the wall.
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  But one thing I'd like to share with my own experience,
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  especially obviously it was only when I was in general duties
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  GD's that I was dealing with mental health patients.
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  And there was one job I remember very clearly that it made me
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  realise that I was very ill equipped, very ill equipped to
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  deal with mental health, people who had mental health issues.
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  I remember I shouldn't laugh at me.
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  It was it's I felt sorry for this lady.
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  She OK, so we we called to this job going dumb.
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  Come in with the actual quality. It might have been like a mental
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  health check as well. Go and do a check on this lady
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  some. She'd been having some issues
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  and I can't remember who called it in and we had to go and
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  check. Now I remember my partner.
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  He was saying that, well, he hadn't dealt with her in quite a
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  while and he made the comment on she must be off her meds because
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  I haven't had to deal with it for quite a while.
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  And then he he told me the story the the last time he had dealt
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  with her, and she'd been, she'd been.
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  She's being held, so police had to take her into their custody.
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  She had then, while she was in the watch here she had smeared
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  herself with her own faeces and he's told me there's probably
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  just a but anyway true story. And our it was.
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  I want to tell you his name. But he they, they called him,
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  they called him Cracker. What the heck?
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  I don't wanna deal with someone that likes to smear themselves.
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  I'm just all the stuff going through it anyway.
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  So I remember we get to this place and all, you know, we're
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  calling out, we're trying to see what's going on.
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  About to walk in to the place and and check it out even though
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  no one answered. I've gone inside just because
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  you know, you don't know whether you know.
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  You've got to check in case someone's, you know, decided to
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  end, end things themselves. And I'm going through the living
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  room, walking through the house, remember walking to the living
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  room. It's very kind of old style.
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  And the furniture is very old style.
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  And it's like in the living room, it's one of these old
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  settings where you've got, like, the cupboards.
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  And then you've got the cupboards and you've got, like,
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  a settee where you would have, like, plates and stuff all on
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  display. And then it kind of like sinks
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  back into a mirror down the back and then comes out again.
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  And you've got more, more like, shelf space where you can have
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  things on display. And so there's no one.
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  I'm calling you out, and there's no one in this living room.
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  And so I'm walking through. I'm walking through the living
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  room, and then I jump with a fright because where it kind of
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  sinks back. And you see the mirror.
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  I kind of see it at the corner of my eye.
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  And I jump back. There's a woman sitting.
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  She's perched like a little bird and she's all jump up.
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  So she's she's like crunched up like this, like crunched up in
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  the in the little city, hidden in like where it sunk in in with
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  the mirror behind her and just crouched there, sitting with her
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  hands up like this, sitting. And I'm like, what the flip
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  she's she scared me. It's just like, I got a fright.
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  I'm like, what the heck am I? And I'm like, I just remember
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  because she's sitting there like like a bird, literally like a
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  bird just sitting there looking at me and I'm like, what the
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  heck is going on? Anyway, I kind of coasted down
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  eventually and she gets, but it was at that moment I realised I
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  am not equipped. I I I don't have the the skills,
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  the skill set. I I have the skill set to arrest
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  people, to wrestle, to get into a fight, maybe if I had to, to
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  defend myself, to try and you know to investigate, to look at
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  things to crime and and a bit of skill with dealing with law law
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  issues. But dealing with mental health
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  patients mean I'm sitting there going, man, I don't know what
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  I'm doing. This lady is crashed up there
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  like a bird just looking at me, not saying anything.
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  OHS is a little unsettling. Kind of coached it down.
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  Talk to her. Got her to get into the the car
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  with us and then transported to Cairns.
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  If my memory serves me correctly, I think she might
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  have been released from the mental health ward before we'd
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  even made it back to our station.
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  So. But all I'm saying all this for
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  is police. Unfortunately when it when it
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  comes to these jobs. I think Lisa called to these
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  jobs in this. In a lot of ways this is beyond
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  them. It is and and I'm not saying
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  that police shouldn't be at the jobs cause you probably should
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  be at those jobs because to help with secure with security kind
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  of thing and to help with that presence of law.
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  But realistically, some of these things I think I felt like
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  police were unequipped. I felt that day I was
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  unequipped. What am I gonna do?
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  How am I? How am I handling this?
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  I mean, everything ended up OK with this lady eventually, but
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  it just made me realise how easily things can escalate when
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  you're dealing with people who have have some serious mental
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  health issues. And then what I found was they
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  inadvertently that's like they'd always decide, oh, it's all
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  good, I'm going to go off my meds.
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  I'm going to have a change. I've got some family coming.
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  So you know, I I'm not supposed to drink alcohol, but I've got
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  friends and family coming over. So hey, I'm going to get on the
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  we're all this weekend and just hit it and then you're like and
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  then it it all goes pear shaped form and police are called in
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  and unfortunately that's what it seems like happened here.
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  Lisa called in from mental health check and sometimes I
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  think you know would have been better off if something like
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  this. They had a know you can't have a
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  doctor or something but someone else present who can.
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  Just go in there beforehand and start talking.
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  Try and get a sense of the situation.
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  Trying a mental health worker. A, You know, a a health worker,
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  a counsellor, Someone stop. I felt like I wasn't equipped to
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  deal with with people who were having mental health issues, who
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  were having breakdowns by the and how much more and how The
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  thing is. It's like to me these officers
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  have been put in a into a situation and and and then you
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  you confronted, they put into a situation which realistically
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  you're you're not. I don't think you're you're
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  really that well trained for when it comes to dealing with
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  mental health patients. You can go through scenarios at
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  the Academy, but nothing. Nothing, really, no, nothing can
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  really help you. You know, for that time when
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  you're really confronted with people with some serious issues
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  and they cannot be talked down, you need more than just the
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  experience of lease training. But anyway, look, just reading,
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  just going by the reports. From what I've heard on the
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  radio, the the news reports and from what I have read, ah,
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  condolences to the to the, to the man who, you know, his
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  family, the man that lost his life and his family, but also to
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  these officers who are presented with this and then were forced
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  into this situation. I don't, I don't think our
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  governments, I don't think QPS, the organisation and I don't
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  think our government, because this is a situation that's been
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  going on for a long, long time. So I I don't think this is a
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  situation, I don't think the sorry that the government and
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  the police organisation and the union are really supporting
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  things and really coming up with solutions that really help
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  prevent these situations from continuing.
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  We need to come up with a better way.
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  We really do. Yeah, that's just my opinion.
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  Let me know what you think, Jay Fallon.
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  As always, just my opinion. Thanks for listening to this
• 15:24
  slippery slope.