Anthony Albanese has praised a lone police officer who pursued a man on a stabbing spree through a shopping mall, saying ‘there is no doubt that she saved lives through her action’
Anthony Albanese has praised a lone police officer who pursued a man on a stabbing spree, saying ‘there is no doubt that she saved lives through her action’
The senior officer, Amy Scott, was conducting routine duties nearby when she was directed to head to Westfield shopping centre following reports a man was using a “massive” knife to stab shoppers.
Within minutes, the officer was inside the centre and began chasing the offender.
“This all happened very, very quickly,” the deputy commissioner of police, Tony Cooke, said.
“The officer was in the near vicinity, attended on her own, was guided to the location of the offender by people who were in the centre and she took the actions that she did, saving a range of people’s lives.”
Albanese thanked the officer, other police, first responders and the “everyday people” who reacted to help victims.
"No, but you see, since all cops are part of a systemic issue, all of them are bastards, even if they have the best intentions and aren't complicit in the problems I have with police"
There is probably a lot of overlap with people who think all white people are racist, or all men are rapists.
A lot of the anti cop sentiments come from the US where cops are much worse. It seems some australians dont understand that police are trained here for much longer, training is of higher quality and they dont need to worry about the constant threat of handguns or rifles. They just read reddit and facebook and follow the yanks blindly with no critical thought whatsoever, just an angry fantasy.
It's just such an echo chamber on these sites. Whatever is popular gets upvotes and goes to the top, whatever isn't popular receives downvotes and sinks to the bottom. People feel peer pressured to vote similarly to others on comments, the cycle continues.
Okay, I’ll bite. I think she did her job well here. I don’t think her job should exist. I guarantee, whether intentionally or not, that she has wielded her power to make a minority’s day shittier during her career, when they didn’t deserve it. Giving that sort of power to a person, giving them that control over other people, almost always leads to corruption. A few people shining through is the exception, not the rule. Victoria police ran a scare campaign in the media last year about the decriminalisation of public intoxication. How it would cause an outbreak of other crimes, and make their job harder. But no such thing has happened. Even if you don’t believe the police should stop existing, it’s undeniable that they’ve systematically lobbied for more and more powers, which disproportionately affect minorities and the poor. Reducing those powers and shrinking the force has more benefits than not doing so or allowing their power and sizes to continue to balloon.
Edit: To be clear, the decriminalisation was directly off the back of the Royal Commission into an indigenous woman, Aunty Tanya Day’s death in custody. She was arrested for public intoxication after she fell asleep drunk on a train. Think of all the drunk footy fans you’ve seen snoozing on a train home before.
I've no doubt that the prejudices of individual officers affects their policing and in some cases may be racist or anti-minority. I think the way around this is more accountability for police officers: they must have bodycams when doing their jobs which are publicly available (we live in a Democracy do we not?) and officers can be removed due random reviews. There is no internal process, it is done by an independent commision. In incidents like this or when in a dodgy area I wouldn't feel very comfortable with a low police presence. I'm not sure what the alternative to police would be, something like the second amendment in the US?
There’s not a lot of point in an event like this when emotions are high and reactionaries are high on the “heroism”.
But “all cops are bastards” remains true.
In capitalist society the role of the police is to protect the private property of the ruling class and to serve their interests.
Since their inception that has been the role of the police force in Australia, beginning with the genocide of aboriginal people in order to secure land for settlers.
In the 80s and 90s we saw how little the role of the police force is in “protecting and serving the people” as they formed gangs to hunt down, murder, then cover up the murder of queer people.
Can you really justify the role police play in keeping workers from striking and making meaningful change in workplace reform, or in housing where the police use violence to evict the poor in order for the rich to buy up all the houses?
We haven’t even touched on mental health. Why in general are the police called when there’s a mental health crisis? Where are the counsellors, psychiatrists and social workers? Why was someone with schizophrenia allowed to get to the point where they became a threat to the public?
The actions of the individual are justified in this situation. Incidentally police do some good actions sometimes by virtue of the fact that they’re currently the ones with the power, weapons, and authority to act in these circumstances.
But there are much better ways of organising a society that don’t create such disparity, and there are much better ways of protecting communities that aren’t primarily centred on using violence against the poor to protect the greed of the rich.
I think hating the police is a distraction from holding politicians who create and protect the laws which the police enforce. For anything to be done politicians need to do it, yet they don't. Don't fight the symptoms fight the disease
A New South Wales police inspector has been hailed as a hero after she shot dead a man who stabbed six people to death in a shopping centre in Bondi Junction.
The senior officer, Amy Scott, was conducting routine duties nearby when she was directed to head to Westfield shopping centre following reports a man was using a “massive” knife to stab shoppers.
Cooke said the officer was walking “quickly” behind the man to catch up with him before he turned towards her with a knife witnesses have described as “massive”.
The NSW police commissioner, Karen Webb, also praised the inspector, calling her “enormously courageous”.
At a press conference on Saturday evening, Webb said police believed the offender is a 40-year-old man, but he was yet to formally identified.
As is standard practice when a police officer is involved with a death, the events have been declared a critical incident and will be investigated, with oversight from the state’s Law Enforcement Conduct Commission.
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I believe in this case it wouldnt have made a difference. The officer would and should have chosen lethal force even if they had a taser. There is a greater chance of a failure with a taser vs a handgun and faced with a murderer with a machete? It would be foolish to take that chance.