Whenever I read about another police shooting, I am reminded of an incident in my father's war experience. He was in the 9th Ambulance Brigade in New Guinea, and I tape-recorded his memories before he passed away.

At one point he was based with a field regiment as first aid orderly. To quote: "I was sitting in my tent one night reading and a couple of the fellows came down and said Cookie’s gone mad, he’s got a knife, he’s threatening to kill himself, so you better come and do something. So I had to go up - not that I was looking forward to it at the time - I went up there and talked to him and persuaded him to give the knife up."

There would have been plenty of guns around; but the armed and trained soldiers turned to the unarmed medical orderly to talk down the man with the knife.

I am aware that circumstances vary, and that today, ice and other drugs can make people unpredictably violent. But surely a cautious approach first would be sensible. While we don't know all the circumstances, one would have thought there were other ways to approach a young man over breaching sentence conditions, than arriving at his family's home on a Saturday night! How many police? Three bullets were fired? Did the young man have a gun? What risk of collateral damage to family members? No doubt we'll find out at the inquest/enquiry.

The background to Yuendumu: the rock throwing at the medical centre, the children afraid that the police will shoot them, are indicative of a break-down in relationships between people and authority. Add the history of Aboriginal: government relationships, and it is understandable perhaps that the Aboriginal people would not be happy at the white authority control in the town, and the police and medical staff jumpy at Aboriginal unrest. Still, shooting people is not the way to improve the situation.

" Perhaps there are other ways of handling situations minus guns?"

Small-pox infused blankets?

Hi Foxy...You say there's a better way, than to yours a gun? I've been then. Pray tell us what that way is please?

Foxy,
By "Primitives" Hasbeen doesn't mean the poorly educated, he means the badly over-educated !

Dear O Sung Wu,

You ask me to tell you a former police officer, what
better way is there to diffuse a situation apart from
guns?

I would not dream of telling someone with your
years of experience what better way there is. I would
have presumed that you could offer some suggestions.

All I can do is suggest that there must be a better way.
I'm sure that you would know what that is - much better
than I would. But I shall cite what an expert stated:

Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart released a
report in 2016 into the fatal police shootings and
he recommended changes in how police officers are
trained. using minimal force. He made it quite clear
that police should continuously improve -
using best practice. According to him -

We need to avoid the "warrior cop" phenomenon that's
been seen in the US. This mentality provides a
dangerous and false sense of security.

All in all the implication therefore - for the use of guns
is that there
must be a credible threat, and an identified deficiency in
current police capabilities to handle the situation by
alternative means. To date a convincing case has not been
made.

Thank you for that FOXY, I appreciate much of what you said. I was in the job for 32 years, much of it as a 'working' detective (a term that has some significance in the job). And I'm sure Qld's Ian STEWART has many more runs on the board than I. There are only two types of coppers - those who pursue an Admin. career eg. (Christine NIXON, former VICPOL Ch. Commissioner), and those who're at the coal face? I dunno, I only made it to Det.Sgt. a very limited career when juxtaposed to that of Mr. Ian STEWART of Qld?