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Another lone gunman in Townsville takes his own life
Have people suddenly gone mad with firearms and motor vehicles? Or is it a result of the toxic mRNA Covid jab which doctors have warned affects the brain and nervous system?
From ABC
Residents who were locked inside their homes while gunshots rang out through their quiet North Queensland neighborhood are speaking to counselors about their experiences.
Officers conducted operations from the kitchens and yards of some homes, forcing some residents to be evacuated.
The sounds of a speaker used by police to negotiate with the man could be heard by residents until the early hours of Monday morning.
The siege ended at 6.45am on Monday, when police found the 50-year-old gunman deceased inside a home.
Key points:
- The 10-hour siege ended when the gunman’s body was found
- Some residents were forced to vacate their homes to allow police to conduct operations from them
- The Queensland government is offering residents counselling usually reserved for natural disaster recovery
Outreach teams are doorknocking residents in the Townsville suburb of Kirwan after a 10-hour siege on Sunday night.
Police officers were forced to seek refuge in nearby homes when a man fired a “significant” number of shots at houses and police vehicles.
Five vehicles were seriously damaged after being sprayed by bullets.
Police established a broad exclusion zone, which meant people were not allowed to leave their properties or come in or out of the area.
Dozens of officers were involved in the response, including negotiators, the dog squad and the Specialist Emergency Response Team (SERT) team.
Officers conducted operations from the kitchens and yards of some homes, forcing some residents to be evacuated.
The sounds of a speaker used by police to negotiate with the man could be heard by residents until the early hours of Monday morning.
The siege ended at 6.45am on Monday, when police found the 50-year-old gunman deceased inside a home.
New $30m police academy for Townsville will not solve Labor’s unprecedented juvenile crime wave
The Premier today announced a new Police Academy for Townsville, as she revealed artist impressions of the new state-of-the-art Queensland police precinct.
The Academy will join the previously announced $30 million police facility – due to replace the Kirwan Police Station- with preliminary works on the facility already underway at the site of the former 1300 Smiles football stadium.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said Queensland was in the midst of the biggest investment in policing in Queensland in more than three decades.
“The Townsville Police Academy will continue to play a significant role in the development of the next generation of police officers,” the Premier said.
“Recently we saw one of the biggest ever in-take of recruits to the Townsville Academy to undergo their comprehensive six-month training course.
“61 new recruits from all walks of life, aged 18 to 53 signed up to the academy, where they’ll undergo rigorous training with an acute emphasis on domestic and family violence.
“They will engage in cultural training, co-facilitated by external practitioners and people with lived experience. The course will focus on trauma-informed and victim-centric policing responses.
“We are going to be training even more recruits like this into the future, and a new state-of-the-art training facility at the new Kirwan police precinct would be a significant drawcard for recruits to North Queensland.
“While it will also provide the Queensland Police Service with greatly enhanced operational training capability.”
Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll said the significant investment cemented the QPS’ commitment to delivering world-class policing services into the future.
“A brand new police academy will help us usher in a new chapter of modernisation of training for our recruits and officers in North Queensland,” Commissioner Carroll said.
“We are embarking on the largest ever police recruit campaign and we know having state-of-the-art training facilities right here in Townsville will be a great incentive for would-be recruits.
“The multi-purpose police complex at Kirwan will not only provide services for the local community but will become a policing hub, boosting our capability across the region.”
Acting Police Minister Mark Furner said the design work will ensure the new facilities at the old football stadium site will be first class.
“I’m very much looking forward to seeing the outcome of this exciting venture for the QPS and the community,” Minister Furner said.
“The existing Police Academy in Townsville has done a great job of preparing new recruits for more than 25 years.
“We have excellent, modern training facilities for police in Brisbane, and now is the time for north Queensland to be equipped with similar cutting-edge training capabilities.
“We are making the biggest investment in police personnel in more than three decades and it is only fitting we provide police with the best possible training facilities.”
Member for Thuringowa Aaron Harper said today’s announcement is a win for North Queensland, and will ensure community safety remains at the forefront for years to come.
“Today is a great day for Townsville, as we welcome the announcement of this new police academy.
“Not only will this see more of our best and brightest progress thorough a state-of the art training facility right here in Townsville, but I expect the construction process will lead to more good jobs for North Queenslanders.
“I have always said that this facility will be something special, and the release of these comprehensive plans prove that.
“I thank the QPS, and the Palaszczuk Government, for paying homage to North Queensland’s footy legacy, by ensuring the new complex’s design honours the former stadium.”
Member for Townsville Scott Stewart said the State Government was continuing to back the Queensland Police Service.
“We know the important job our police do each and every day serving our community and that’s why we always back them with good facilities and equipment,” Mr Stewart said.
“It’s exciting to see the plans for this state-of-the-art facility, which will be great for our police graduates.”
Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers welcomed the announcemt.
“The QPU welcomes today’s announcement as a new Police Academy in Townsville is sorely needed and is a tangible example of this Government’s commitment to police in regional Queensland,” Mr Leavers said.
“I also thank and acknowledge the Premier and Police Minister’s commitment to work with me to focus on increasing police numbers and address police recruiting in Queensland through a whole suite of innovative and nation leading measures that we are working on.”
ALP instructs cops to back off black criminals
by staff reporters
The hunters are becoming the hunted in a shocking new escalation of Townsville’s youth crime crisis, Katter’s Australian Party Hinchinbrook (KAP) MP Nick Dametto has said.
Mr Dametto said reports of youth offenders pursuing, ramming and throwing bricks at police cars overnight had sickened him.
He said due to the Queensland Police Service’s strict anti-pursuit policy, it was likely the targeted officers had no choice but to retreat and leave the kid crims to continue on their rampage.
It was a shocking state of affairs that was causing community anger to boil over and vigilantism to fester, Mr Dametto warned.
“This would have to be a world first – a situation where 12 and 13 year old kids have so little respect, or fear, of the law that they are actually comfortable hunting down police officers,” he said.
“Someone is going to die, or be severely hurt, unless drastic actions are taken.
“I don’t want to see that in this community – not again.
“The current youth justice system, and the Palaszczuk Labor Government that has presided over this mess for the last six years, must accept responsibility.
Last week half a dozen murris from the war-torn Cape York community of Aurukun were airlifted by rescue chopper to Cairns Hospital after being shot with a cross-bow and hunting bows during yet another regular riot between five warring families. Not a word from their caring local member Cynthia!
“Stop it with the dodgy statistics and the tokenistic press conferences – people are not going to tolerate this for much longer.”
Mr Dametto said with Cleveland Detention Centre at capacity and its rotational door set-up repeatedly failing to deter recidivist offenders, the situation in the North was desperate.
He, on behalf of the KAP, called urgently for:
- Relocation Sentencing to be trialled as an alternative to detention for recidivist youth offenders
- An innovative strategy that allows for the effective pursuit and disabling of stolen vehicles and ensures public and officer safety.
“Just waiting for these kids to get bored with their games or run out of fuel is not an effective response to these kinds of situations,” Mr Dametto said.
Townsville small businesses reporting shocking losses
Katter’s Australian Party Leader Robbie Katter has backed calls from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland’s (CCIQ) for the Labor Government to provide small businesses hit by the latest snap lockdown with a targeted financial stimulus package.
Mr Katter said other states and territories had provided state-based economic packages to small businesses so they could survive after suffering extreme revenue loss from COVID lockdowns.
Millions of Queenslanders, including in Townsville, Magnetic Island, and Palm Island, were plunged into a shock lockdown on Tuesday after a COVID-19-positive case from Brisbane travelled through the North.
Small businesses in Townsville are already reporting shocking losses as a result of the forced lock-down and strict restrictions on those businesses still allowed to open. [1]
The CCIQ has called for payments of up to $25,000 for affected businesses to cover loss of stock and trade and support the reinstatement of business operations.
Mr Katter said the KAP agreed there was a need for financial support, but that it should be scaled according to demonstrated need.
He said it was unsustainable in the long-term for small businesses, and tax-payers through rescue packages, to absorb the financial impacts of unpredictable lock-downs.
“Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and don’t have the ability survive long-term economic pressure, especially pressure forced upon them by their own Government,” the Traeger MP said.
“As they say, put your money where your mouth is; if the Palaszczuk Government expects the small business community to shut up shop and fall in line to stop the spread of COVID, they must be prepared to foot the bill for these small businesses to stay afloat.”
“When you drive through North Queensland, through Townsville and out west, you do not overwhelmingly see big business; you see hundreds of little shopfronts all run and staffed by locals in the community.
“We want to keep it that way, but they cannot sustain these hits on their own.”
Mr Katter said just like money does not grow on trees, it doesn’t just magically appear in the till at the end of the day either.
He said he would today write to the Minister for Employment and Small Business and Minister for Training and Skill development Di Farmer, requesting she honour the CCIQ’s request.
[1] https://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/news/townsville/covid-rule-uncertainty-hampers-townsvilles-small-businesses/news-story/ab3db322924c00e0e4488702fd81e47d
Canberra wastes a billion dollars a day but no dams for decades
Curse less and dam more
by Viv Forbes, science writer
Water conservation peaked in Australia in 1972 – our last big dam was Wivenhoe in Queensland built 35 years ago.
Elsewhere in Australia, water conservation virtually stopped when Don Dunstan halted the building of Chowilla Dam on the Murray in 1970 and Bob Brown’s Greens halted the Franklin Dam in 1983 (and almost every other dam proposal since then).
The last dam to be built in Queensland, Wivenhoe, 35 years ago. Dams drought proof the countryside and help with flood mitigation
The Darling River water management disaster shows that we now risk desperate water shortages because our population and water needs have more than doubled, and much of our stored water has been sold off or released to “the environment”.
However, we regularly see floods of water being shed by the Great Dividing Range, most of it ending up in the Pacific Ocean, while somewhere to the west of that watershed is in severe drought.
Our ancestors had the prudence and the will to build great assets like the Tasmanian and Snowy hydro schemes, Lake Argyle, Fairbairn Dam and the Perth to Kalgoorlie water pipeline? What are we building for our children?
Politicians can pass laws or find money for games, stadiums, climate jamborees, study tours, gifts to foreigners, green energy toys and useless giant batteries. Canberra alone spends a billion dollars every day.
Our engineers know how to lay large pipelines over hundreds of km to export natural gas, and bore road and rail tunnels through mountains and under cities and harbours.
But we cannot find the funds or the courage to build a couple of dams on the rainy side of the Great Divide somewhere between the Ross River at Townsville and the Clarence River at Grafton and some pumps, tunnels and pipes to use and release it into the thirsty Darling River basin.
Someone is always cursing either droughts or floods.
We need to curse less and dam more.
Cairns News 