“Stop the killing, stop the dying”

You may remember the appalling story from April last year of a man with schizophrenia who stabbed and killed multiple people in a Sydney shopping centre. You can read about it here.

The inquest into the circumstances has begun and they’ve heard evidence from Inspector Amy Scott, the first police officer into the scene. She confronted and killed the attacker just over a minute after entering the shopping centre.

Her account of those 60 or so seconds is humbling and terrifying in equal measure. She was the only officer there but knew she had to do something - training for officers had moved past old fashioned “contain and negotiate” to “don’t wait, go”. When the public is at risk, then police officers have to put themselves in harm’s way - she described it as “stop the killing, stop the dying”.

She remembers thinking that she was probably going to die. Yet despite this, she ran into the danger zone, located, challenged and then shot him when he charged at her.

Much of what she said, and the circumstances she was faced with, rang very true to me for policing in the UK.

Recently, I attended a presentation by one of the armed officers involved in responding to the Borough Market attack in London in 2017. He spoke about pushing into the area of the attack, not knowing whether there were still armed terrorists in the vicinity. And we heard from PC Wayne Marques, a British Transport Police officer, who took on all three attackers armed only with a baton. He put himself directly in harm’s way to protect the public, and nearly died from the resultant injuries. He was awarded the George Medal for his bravery.

As a Tactical Firearms Commander in London, my colleagues and I received frequent training inputs and participated in exercises designed to give us some insight into what it might be like to deal with a marauding terrorist attack (MTA), where terrorists are moving through a crowded location attacking the public.

I knew that in that situation I’d be sending armed police to the scene, but also commanding unarmed police to push forward and protect the public. It’s what we were trained to do. And I knew that these officers would do it, despite the obvious dangers, because that’s why people join the police - to protect those at risk. I hope there’s never another incident like Borough Market, but tragically, statistically there probably will be. And ultimately we will rely on police officers - armed and unarmed - to confront the threat, protect the public, and restore order.

As a society, we make huge demands on our police service, who these days work in an environment of constant criticism from the public, the press, and many politicians. Yet when the chips are down, every time these same maligned, under-appreciated officers step up. Sometimes I think that as a society we don’t deserve them.

Picture credit: ROHAN ANDERSON