Recent comments from the Coroner exposed gaping flaws in police capability
by Gil Hanrahan in Sydney
Any ten year old kid who has fired a .177 Daisy air rifle would know that low velocity lead pellets do not fragment nor in most instances, ricochet.
Police at the Lindt Café siege in 2014 should have possessed the same knowledge. Supposedly trained SWAT policemen too should have known this basic ballistic tenet.
More revelations about the police blunders were aired during the recent Coroners report into the deaths of Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson.
One unit threw flash grenades about the foyer before entering the café, thus blinding and deafening themselves before getting into the café.
The shooter at Port Arthur obviously was not in the same situation. He wore ear plugs or he would have had concussion from the firearm muzzle energy and excruciating noise of repeated firing in a confined space.
The police blundered into the cafe, one on top of the other falling about in the dark, waving around and blazing their H & K .223 high velocity assault rifles at an indistinguishable target.
Travelling at 3300 feet per second these 55 grain projectiles are lethal if they directly hit a target or if a bullet hits a hard wall and ricochets or fragments.
The officer who actually hit the gunman fired 17 rounds in three seconds clearly demonstrating he had not been trained to shoot in a confined space, tactical response situation.
Another officer was actually wounded by shrapnel from either his own or his partner’s firearm.
The young barrister, Katrina Dawson, did not have a chance. Of course bullet fragments had to go somewhere and they did, killing an innocent young mother with shrapnel.
Commissioner Scipione was not about to allow the highly trained army anti- terrorist unit that was on standby, poised and ready to move from Holdsworthy Army Base, to take out the terrorist. This would look bad for the cops.
This error of judgement by a Police Commissioner who went home to bed for the night while 10 highly distressed innocent café patrons and eight staff cowered under the mad terrorist’s shotgun, left command of the siege to the totally hopeless and inept Assistant Commissioner Catherine Burns.
For this the families of the two murdered hostages and NSW should be thankful. Commissioner Andrew Scipione has retired will not again be at the helm of another disaster, and nor should his Commander Jenkins.
Café manager Tori Johnson died needlessly at the muzzle of mad Man Monis’ 12 gauge shotgun.
The army anti-terrorist unit would have stormed the café within an hour of assessing the siege situation. Tori and Katrina would not have died.
Only two officers were needed to enter the café through each door. Armed with HK MP5 assault rifles chambered in 9mm calibre, these lower velocity, copper jacketed lead projectiles travelling at 1300 fps do not fragment, rarely ricochet and are effective at close range.
The snipers had a chance to take out Man Monis on several occasions by firing through a plate glass window.
Who knows what firearms the snipers had that night. They should have been armed with a minimum .30 calibre sniper rifle such as a 7mm Remington Magnum or a .300 Winchester Magnum, highly effective sniper rifles at any distance.
If they had been properly trained they would have used 150 grain armour piercing, boat tailed projectiles that could have punched a hole through plate glass or even medium armoured glass at the close range they were offered.
There would have been little collateral damage.
Instead no sniper fired a shot. The mad Islamic terrorist might have had a bomb in his back pack but If they had shot him in the head at 50 metres through the glass, the bomb factor would have been irrelevant.
The police protect their own and for the new Commissioner, Mick Fuller, interviewed on Four Corners, it was obviously extremely hard for him make his best admission, “we could have gone in earlier.”
Well Commissioner, where was your apology to the Dawson and Johnson families?
The people of Inner Sydney can be thankful there was not more than one terrorist.
The editor and I we share the same sentiments he is correct in this analysis to be able to respond to the threat you need to have the tools to do so further more I would like to add that in the US out of the remaining 45 states those that have the most liberal gun laws when it comes to self defence by far have the lowest crime rates in a good number of states and individual counties their crime rates are 100% lower that means zero to the liberals that think they know it alll and I will add in Switzerland where their laws are even more relaxed their crime rates are even lower than the US again on the other side of the spectrum in Mexico where they have every gun control law imaginable on the books they average 120000 deaths annually from surprise the criminals who are criminals because they don’t care what the laws say or mean they are going to commit their crimes anyway and all you have done is make it easier for them to do that when you dissarm the prey you make it easier for the predator and you get more predators
To Freedom man and Irene, remember the first respondent to a shooting crime is the victim. Lots of good points have been raised. Editor
If you wish to talk figures and refer ourselves to the US that’s ok the actual rate in the US is just under 8000/year and 70% of those are people committing suicide in their own home Americans use their firearms on average around 2000000 every year to stop criminals from committing crimes for very 1% increase in personal firearm ownership across the US their average overall crime rate drops 4.1% out of 50 states in the US 5 of them account for 80% of the overall crime in the US here in Australia since the useless laws were passed favouring the criminals the crime rate jumped 50% in the first 12 months 1996-1997 from 1997 until now our crime rate is up by 80% out of all those self defence situations in the US a dot in self defence is only fired 1% of the time and even then in most cases around 90% the criminals actually survive to face charges in the U.K. I’m afraid your wrong again for the past few years now all new police being trained are packing firearms in the uk in their most recent attack that occurred those first few police officers that were around happened to be unarmed and had to wait for others to arrive with their side arms to take out the terrorists by the way that took a whole 8mins that’s 8mins that those three individuals continued to attack people I’m sorry but that’s 8mins to long when seconds count the police are minutes away you are responsible for your own safety not the police in your world you would want to give your right of life away for someone else to control I’m afraid you would not fair off well I’m afraid it’s your argument that’s full of holes
The USA is an armed society and in 2015 more than thirteen thousand of its people were killed by gunshot. That is 27 deaths by guns each and every day! Australia is not an armed
society and our gun death rate was 211 for 2015. An unarmed society is far, far safer.
Extrapolating Australia’s figures to USA population would give a death rate of 3,000 per year!
Remember – the police in the UK are generally unarmed – Its safer. There was a dead terrorist in the Lindt siege BUT two special, wonderful hostages died. Your whole argument is fallacious. Absolute rot.
You obviously don’t understand the whole concept of an armed society is a safe society as the would be terrorists have no idea who is armed and who is not thus there is a force multiplier there in affect and a real deterrent to committing the act in the first place and if they still try it then they have no idea who is packing the end result is the same one dead terrorist and no dead inocent people.
This is nonsense, absolute rot. Depends who fires the first shot!
What do you expect to happen when you have a disarmed society the scum bags and the criminals can do what they like and get away with it if there was a few conceal carry holders present inside the cafe that day things would have turned out differently and mad monis would not have stood a chance he would have been taken out by those inside the cafe and the two people would have survived and been around today .
Inept unprofessional unapologetic an embarrassment to Australia the executive board of the police need to be sacked forthwith & sued by the victims families
When the drama began, we noticed the black curtains. The journalist said it was Islamist writing and we know there is no such thing, it was Arabic. We immediately sent a ‘tweet’ to Channel 7 telling them it was Arabic. We realised the broadcast would be beaming world wide. It was puzzling because the three words were on the black material were the reverse of what they are normally. The ornate ‘curtains’ used by 4 Corners were completely different.
The next thing we heard was one of the snipers quietly say ‘I have a clear sight of him’ but he didn’t get the command to fire. The hours dragged on and the police dithered. When I was in a tight situation I was so glad the SAS answered the call. Last week was the 50th Anniversary of the Six Day War which began on 5th June 1967, Last week the 5th June was also a Monday the 50th Anniversary and the London Bridge Borough Market massacre occurred. I think there is a link. I was working in Beirut when the War began. I was sent into the radio room. I knew it was a pre-emptive strike by the Israelis. Two days later the Embassy was surrounded by a very angry mob, We were hostage to them and no way out. Then came the molotov cocktails through the windows and a elderly Arab walked the long corridor shutting all the doors to offices that faced seawards. I really didn’t know whether I would survive the day.
Two trucks arrived, the red berets got out, lined up and started shooting. To the zenith, to 11 o’clock, to 10 o’clock the nest volley would have been 9 o’clock but the crowd had cleared.
The joos don’t want the shoot their Muslim imports at all costs