It is just the 'Watermelon' Greens faction doing their thing. Bob Brown had heaps of trouble with them and gave up.

It is typical of the ambulance chasing Greens that they would be hunting headlines. Honestly, where would the investigative skills and powers come from if not from within the police?

However to even direct and answer at the lightweight Shoebridge's foolish troublemaking would be to lend some legitimacy to his protesting and quest for news photo opportunities and no-one wants to do that.

Dear Paul,

One positive thing to come out of this Sydney shooting
has been that now there are so many concerns and calls
for reviews -
about police lethal force and calls for more effective
officer training. This is not a problem that has suddenly
arisen - it has been an ongoing problem for many years
in all states and territories and as Prof. Michael
Kennedy (himself an experienced policeman, and now a
professor in policing) has stated it is "time to review
police training on the use of deadly force."

People with mental illnesses have presented a huge problem
to police over the years - and the statistics of shootings
are high. They include both genders - and age
groups. Mental illness does not discriminate.

This issue has received a great deal of coverage and we
hope that there will be positive results that will come
out of this for the benefit of the community and the
police.

As stated earlier - the reality is that no police
officer wants to kill another human being and to avoid
placing police officers in this invidious position
the focus of post shooting investigations should be
not just if the homicide was justifiable but also if the
homicide was avoidable.

Identifying these issues will allow for the development of
best practice and reduce the need for the use of lethal
force by police. And that is something that any rational
person would want.

See you on another discussion.

Fox,

What destroys your credibility entirely is that you are determined to stop short of acknowledging and admitting the obvious, which is that police are already subject to available laws and on top of that they are rigidly required to apply a host of guidelines governing their response to threats against them and the public. As well, uses of force are always reported on and reviewed for accountability and for continuous improvement.

In fact it is astounding that more police are not killed by offenders through having to pause to consider the restrictions placed upon them and the weight of the judgement (and certain ramifications when a court second guesses them in the comfort and security of police presence with hours, days, even months to decide).

It is sly of you to twist it all around to pretend you are in fact helping police by sledging them and demanding additional, redundant reviews, and by claiming they need new methods and training. All arrived at through complete ignorance of operational considerations and without concern for the risks they face.

Any police, including other emergency officers, examples being military, fire and ambulance and their relatives reading this should take some comfort that police and other services have the full support of the public. The critics and the odd grandstanding politician have their secondary agendas as usual. When they leave their pedestals the thin blue line will still have to keep us, our loved ones and our assets safe and we the law-abiding public are very thankful to you for your vigilance, dedication and sacrifice.

Thanks Foxy, a very intelligent post and I totally agree, the situation is crying out for change, both for the public confidences aspect in the police force, and for the protection of serving officers themselves. Some prefer to put their head in the sand on this issue, but they are a minority in the community. On The Beach would you agree the head in the sand people are in the minority?
David Shoebridge has campaigned on this issue over a number of years now, raising it often in the NSW parliament. The ultra right extremists try to portray David as a grandstanding troublemaker, but as they are very much in the minority it all water of a ducks back!

p/s Foxy I will catch you on another thread soon. we will be away for a couple of weeks from tomorrow, visiting Aotearoa and The Maori Land Court in Rotorua. It should be interesting.

Sadly, it will be a very long, cold day in Hell before the NSW 'Watermelon' Greens are concerned about the welfare of police officers.

BTW., has Shoebridge removed that lie from the Greens site yet? See here,
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6716&page=0#204708
- the Post by Is Mise, Sunday, 8 February 2015 1:16:12 PM)

When I was growing up in Perth in the 70's the coppers didn't even carry guns, if I do not misrecall.

Clearly times have changed.

Now, its all about hollow point bullets and shoot to kill just in case you don't take them down with the first shot and in turn risk being injured or killed yourself.

This of course has led to some serious tragedies in some cases, and many shootings of the mentally unwell come to mind.