Preventing avoidable police shootings
Over the past 17 years there has been no reduction in the number of people with mental illnesses who have been fatally shot by Victoria Police. Weapons such as firearms and capsicum spray and foam have been used by police on adults and young persons experiencing mental health crises, sometimes with tragic and unacceptable results. This has led to community concern and disquiet.
Why does Victoria have a high rate of police shootings and what can be done to prevent avoidable deaths?
Backgrounder to the Tyler Cassidy inquest finding:
Police shootings since Tyler Cassidy's death
CLC Report: An independent system to investigate police related deaths
Smart Justice for Young People
The Federation has been actively seeking to improve police policy and practice around the use of police force by publishing important police reports so that the community is able to scrutinise and debate the effectiveness and integrity of Victoria Police training in the use of force. To access these reports, we were involved in a lengthy freedom of information case at VCAT where we made submissions on why it was in the public interest for Victoria Police to release the reports.
Examination of police shootings 2005-2008 (‘Williams Report, No. 1’)
A report for senior Victoria Police by Michael Williams, about two months after the fatal police shooting of a 15 year old boy, Tyler Cassidy at a skate park in inner Melbourne. Williams was asked to investigate if there were any common themes emerging in police shootings over the last three years.
Most of the ten people who were shot by police were not acting rationally, either because they were experiencing an mental health crisis and or were affected by drugs and alcohol. Despite this, many of the police officers called to deal with these critical incidents seemed to assume that the person in crisis was acting rationally and police used tactics such as shouting . This only made the situation worse with the distressed person becoming more upset and angry.
The report documents multiple problems with police responses including a ‘must resolve quickly’ approach to resolving an incident. In many of the police responses, there were problems with ‘command and control’ as well as poor information handling and communications.
Download the report here:
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Meeting operational safety and tactics training and critical incident management standards (Williams Report, No. 2)
Download the report here:
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OC (Capsicum) spray and foam review
In 2007, Inspector Gary Thompson conducted a review into the use of capsicum spray and foam by Victorian Police. The report examined the use of OC Spray and foam over January 2007, revealing that police were mostly using capsicum foam at police premises.
Download the report here:
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