Seventh Queensland police shooting sparks calls for watchdog to act now | Australia news | The GuardianSeventh Queensland police shooting sparks calls for watchdog to act now | Australia news | The Guardian










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Queensland



Seventh Queensland police shooting sparks calls for watchdog to act now









Civil libertarians say the state’s police watchdog needs to cut across the many shooting investigations and act, rather than waiting for recommendations














There are calls for the police watchdog to provide a “circuit breaker” after seven police shootings this year. Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAP




Joshua Robertson


Thursday 11 December 2014 20.34 EST







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The seventh police shooting in Queensland this year has renewed calls for the police watchdog to provide a “circuit breaker” to the numerous investigations into the service’s use of force.
Police investigating a domestic complaint shot a man at his home in Ashgrove, inner Brisbane, after he allegedly threatened them with a samurai sword on Thursday night.
It is the latest in an unusual spike in police shootings, including four deaths, which had already triggered reviews by the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC), the state coroner and the police service.
Commissioner Ian Stewart told Guardian Australia police would be doing “everything we can to undertake the review that we promised”. He intended to open police training to media and the community in the New Year “so that we can demonstrate just that point”.
The president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, Terry O’Gorman, said “a circuit breaker to do something now” was needed, as an independent coronial inquest into a number of the shootings might be years away.
O’Gorman called on the CCC to “look quickly into what are the common aspects” and release preliminary recommendations within two months.
Attorney general, Jarrod Bleijie, is yet to sign off on a request from the CCC last month to conduct a “high-priority” research inquiry into police shootings. 
A spokesman for Bleijie – who has veto power over such investigations under reforms to the CCC last year – said on Friday that the proposal had been referred to parliament’s crime and corruption committee “for consideration”.
Stewart said a number of similar incidents since the last fatal shooting had been “resolved peacefully and managed well” by police.
“Again, last night is another indication – bearing in mind we [also] had a siege in Cairns last night and an officer taken to hospital unconscious from an incident on the Gold Coast – and what that demonstrates is the complexity of the environment that our frontline police work in every day,” he said.
“Thankfully at this point in time, the person who was shot by police last night is still alive and it’s my hope that he will make a recovery.”
O’Gorman said it was imperative the latest shooting provoked a change in police responses to such incidents.
“Something has to come out of the latest shooting and we can’t just have a repetition of the very successful police line of ‘it’s a bastard of a job for us’, where the victim and his family just get forgotten,” he said.
“We still see the line recycled ‘when the policeman puts on his blue shirt every morning his wife doesn’t know whether he’s going to come home’ – good spin but totally ignoring the issue.”
Detective superintendent Tony Duncan told reporters that officers had called on the man to drop his weapon outside his home in Glenlyon Drive.
“As a result, there was a confrontation and … that male was shot by police,” he said.
Duncan said a doctor who lived in the street assisted the man, who had stomach and chest wounds. He later underwent emergency surgery at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s hospital. He was in a serious condition on Friday morning.
Stewart hinted the man might face charges. “There will be consequences for him, obviously, for the situation, which has already been reported,” he said.
A neighbour told the Courier-Mail he saw the man approaching police slowly in the front yard of his home while holding a “medium length” samurai sword.
The newspaper reported that the man’s partner had complained to police of receiving threats, but police refused to confirm details.
The police ethical standards command is investigating the shooting, the fourth within a month.
Incidents under investigation include a non-fatal shooting in which police allegedly shot a man in a moving car after they went to investigate a stolen lawnmower.
Stewart announced a review last month after Queensland’s mental health commissioner and the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties said the number of shootings was unacceptably high.
Stewart met the mental health commissioner to discuss ways of improving the police response to disturbances involving people with mental health issues, including giving them instant access to mental health records.



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Australian police and policing




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more on this story














Queensland police shoot man 'who ran at them with samurai sword'

Ethical standards command begins investigation after shooting in Ashgrove, north-west Brisbane



Published: 11 Dec 2014




Queensland police shoot man 'who ran at them with samurai sword'












Why were police so quick to kill, asks mother of Queensland shooting victim

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Why were police so quick to kill, asks mother of Queensland shooting victim












Queensland police may get instant access to mental health records

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