AUSTRALIAN POLICE USE FORCE TOO QUICKLY, UNNECESSARILY:EXPERTS

A spate of police shootings across Australia this year have prompted debate about use of force by police.

BY Annie Schubert and Madelaine Sealey

TWO men have died this year and several others wounded during police confrontations in which officers discharged guns or tasers. This morning (Saturday 14 May) a man was shot in Perth in a situation where police tasers allegedly failed. These shootings follow this year’s annual report by the Commonwealth Law Enforcement Ombudsman that found Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers are “too quick to resort to weapons.” Mental health and human rights groups argue that numerous incidences indicate that alternative methods deserve greater scrutiny.

This morning’s incident is the second police shooting in Perth this week and follows two police shootings in Melbourne late last month (April 2011) when a man died in St Kilda and another was shot in the chest the next day in Toorak.  These join what is already a long list of casualties as a result of police confrontations. On that list are local men Nathan Doherty and Jonathan Crowley. Mr Doherty was shot dead in Wanniassa this year by ACT police while Jonathan Crowley is quadriplegic after being shot in the neck in a similar incident in 2001.

ACT Deputy Police Chief Police Commissioner Bruce Hill suggested that had officers been equipped with tasers Mr Doherty’s death could have been avoided however the spate of shootings and taserings across Australia this year alone prompts the question – is use of force by the force necessary? Are police using weapons where alternative methods could be employed?

This year’s report by The Commonwealth Law Enforcement Ombudsman identifies problems with reporting of these incidences within the AFP. It also found “‘little evidence came from [AFP officers] involved to show that they had taken steps to de-escalate or effectively negotiate an outcome before employing force” contrary to AFP Commissioner’s Order on ‘Use of Force’ - strict guidelines designed to respond to violent confrontations with minimum use of force and risk to all parties involved in these situations.

A spokesperson for the Law enforcement Ombudsman told NowUC on Tuesday (10 May 2011), it had made a number of recommendations to the AFP in relation to officers using weapons and would continue to monitor policing procedures and complaints with use of force. “[We recommended] that the AFP should improve the standard of the recording of information in Operational Safety use of Force Reports, consistent with the requirements of [the document that governs the use of force by AFP members],” the Ombudsman’s Spokesperson said in written statement. 

“[It was also recommended] investigations and adjudications of complaints of excessive Use of Force should overtly demonstrate that [the] requirements of negotiations and de-escalation have been fully considered.

“Members using force should be required to demonstrate that they appropriately employed or discarded these strategies based upon the circumstances which were present at the incident’.”

While the AFP accepted the first recommendation and accepted the second ‘in principle’, it would not agree to amend the Use of Force form and impressed upon investigators to negotiate and resolve conflict while investigating. It also requested reference to this be articulated in the final report, according to the Ombudsman’s spokeperson. “From what we examined, we did not conclude that there was excessive use of force by the AFP but more that the reporting mechanisms were inadequate. Use of force by police remains an active interest of the Ombudsman and it will remain in our focus,” the spokesperson said.

But failure by officers to employ de-escalation tactics is evident in the number of incidences involving use of police weapons, one of which was the 2001 incident involving Chapman man Jonathan Crowley who was shot while experiencing psychosis and hypermania.

Mr Crowley is currently suing the AFP and ACT Mental Health over the incident in proceedings that have lasted nearly a decade. The ACT Supreme Court heard in 2008 that Mr Crowley began to experience religious delusions two days before being shot by officers 300 metres from his home. His father, Keith Crowley, had contacted the ACT Mental Health Crisis team the day before the incident and a member of the mental team attended the family home, determining that involuntary hospital admission with police assistance was necessary.

The following day Keith Crowley contacted the team and said he thought Jonathan would be willing to go to Calvary Hospital voluntarily. Later on that day though police received reports that a man fitting Mr Crowley’s description was wielding something like a samurai sword while walking down his street shouting- police arrived on the scene to find Crowley in a psychotic state.

The Court heard that when senior constables Ben Willis and Glen Pitkethly arrived on the scene, the mental health team and an operations support team had been alerted. It was also heard that the officers had coordinated with these teams and other officers beforehand. Despite this, both officers approached Mr Crowley before the support teams had arrived and Constable Pitkethly shot him just 42 seconds after calling in to the station. It is unclear whether the call was made for backup or to confirm officers had found Mr Crowley.

According to Keith Crowley, his son had no previous altercations with police or psychotic episodes before the incident and that police failed to negotiate while they waited for the support team to arrive.

“When they got to him, they nearly ran over him,” Keith Crowley told NowUC yesterday (Friday 13 May). “He had his old bamboo kendo stick and when they got to him, he put it over his head, which in Kendo means surrender, and they thought he was going to attack and they shot him.”

Jonathan Crowley has been campaigning heavily for police to be better trained in situations like that that rendered him quadriplegic. In his capacity as a member of Australian Labor Party, Jonathan last year led a motion that unanimously moved that police shouldn’t carry lethal weapons in their day-to-day policing though to date “there’s been no result for it,” Mr Crowley said.

ACT Policing were asked if they had sought to change procedures following this incident and whether any disciplinary action has been taken against the two constables involved. A spokesperson for the AFP told NowUC (May 4 2011) in a written statement, “This matter has been reported on exhaustively through the media, and has been the subject of an extensive AFP Professional Standards investigation… There are also civil proceedings still pending, which means it would be entirely inappropriate to comment”.

The ACT Mental Health Coalition said last week (May 4 2011) that the case of Mr Crowley highlighted a greater need for training within the AFP and holds the strong view that, “police officers need training in how to work with mental health consumers who are in crisis”. The organisation’s spokesperson Brook McKail told NowUc that that there is still “a lot of stigma around mental illness in the community,” but that it was important to remember that people with mental illness were statistically “no more likely to perpetrate violence than anybody else in the community.”

“We are strongly of the view that obviously it’s a difficult situation for everybody and I’m sure that nobody has found those particular circumstances easy … there is a need for significantly more training for police officers, “ Ms McKail told NowUC.

“We also just need to be careful about assuming that because somebody is threatening police that it is necessarily a result of mental illness, it’s usually not,” Ms McKail said.

“The AFP needs to develop a range of skills where they might be with somebody who is in crisis and who could initially be a threat to themselves and for us, the best way to do that is having a range of strategies available… but if they are in crisis, that is when they are likely to become agitated and its actually finding ways to support them and calm them in those kind of situations.”

 Ms McKail pointed to other regions both locally and internationally where close collaborations between the mental health sector and policing units were yielding positive results and welcomed the $4.2 million boost for the Mental Health ACT and community sector services in the recent ACT Budget.

“For us, it’s about police having a range of options available to them for any situation. They are going to come across situations where there’s a risk of violence, perhaps people who are at risk of hurting themselves or someone else [and] police need to have strategies to deal with that,” Ms McKail said.

“One of them may be tasers, but the most important thing is to use the least restrictive and the least forceful of strategies first, and if things have escalated if that’s absolutely necessary. One of the ways we need to do that is training them in de-escalation.”

Marc Newhouse, Chairman of the West Australian Deaths in Custody Watch Committee, has echoed this call for alternative methods of policing. Mr Newhouse has called for a national debate on use of weapons across the board after a recent report by the Crime and Misconduct Commission found that in its home state of Western Australia cases involving use of tasers involved higher rates of Indigenous Australians and people with mental health issues.

“The rationale behind the use of tasers was that it would lead to a decrease in firearms. That has not been the case and there has actually been an increase in the use of firearms and … tasers,” Mr Newhouse told NowUC last week.

“There needs to be a move toward police using conflict resolution, talking down and using mental health workers … there are some obvious problems with the use of tasers, particularly in relation to vulnerable groups.”

The report by the Commission found that Aboriginal people were being tasered at a higher rate than non-indigenous people. The widely publicised incident caught by closed circuit cameras involving Western Australian man Kevin Spratt being tasered 13 times by a number of officers stands as testament to this.

The Western Australian Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) found that officers involved in the incident used ‘unjustified excessive use of force’ on Mr Spratt, who was unarmed and said to have been mentally disturbed at the time.

In a report by the CCC recommendations were made for the use of tasers, including that they be employed only in situations involving a “real and imminent risk of serious harm”. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Mick Gooda has agreed that use of tasers should be restricted to grave situations.

“Police should not be using tasers to enforce compliance such as was the case with Mr Spratt,” Mr Gooda told NowUC in a written statement last week.

“There should be independent oversight and a review of allegations of misconduct of police … to ensure that a culture does not develop that sees the inappropriate use of tasers become normalised.”

Attorney-General Simon Corbell said in February that role-out of tasers in the ACT would be subject to an AFP inquiry but was unavailable to answer questions from NowUC.

The Western Australian experience demonstrates that while non-lethal, use of tasers is still dangerous. The combined cases of Kevin Spratt and Jonathan Crowley show that police are too quick to employ force in situations where training in negotiation and de-escalation could have been effective. The Commonwealth Law Enforcement Ombudsman says it is committed to monitoring these issues.

Police gunning men down.

The next tough question I will be asking (because I ask a lot of them!) is whether or not police are too quick to draw and fire guns in situations like that which occurred this morning in St Kilda and earlier this year in the suburb that neighbours my own.

Photo from Daily Mail UK

Were these deaths necessary?

Stay tuned for an explosively investigative piece by notquitelois. It will challenge convention, your personal beliefs and mine* and beg the question - are police too quick at the hip? Is there a culture within the police force that permits use of weapons in difficult situations before all other avenues are exhausted?

This isn't A Current Affairs though so there is not more sensational interest-ticklers, just a promise that I am testing my journalistic capabilities and asking hard questions for what I hope will be a solid investigative news story, so do stick around.










*this is possibly an exaggeration

Are women in the media as disadvantaged as those in the public service and politics?

 The Federal government is committed to closing gaps. The gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians life expectancy is one, and the gap between men and women’s salaries is another.

Both are important issues and need confronting, as a first world nation that these inequalities still exist is almost unbelievable. That as a nation we pride ourselves on libertarian principles and democratic values and yet there are still members of our society who are disadvantaged at a basic level of human rights beggars belief.

The battle for gender equality has been long – since Germaine Greer’s Female Eunuch women’s rights have never been so hotly contested – and is still being fought.

The Government’s Gender Equity Act is set to change all that though, hand in hand with legislation that disadvantages businesses that don’t meet certain quotas for female staff.

Boardrooms have always been the domain of ‘the boys’ – save for the secretary in the minute skirt and plunging neckline – and though that’s slowly changing, women are still greatly outnumbered by men in executive positions.

The media world is no different. Fairfax, News Limited and even ABC have very few women at the top of the chain. News Corporation have only one woman in their executive suite – one can only imagine what a company lunch on Friday is like for her.

But is this because women are discriminated against when it comes to employment opportunities, or is this simply because women don’t make good executive decisions?

In 2004, Alasdair Milne, former head at BBC, blamed women for ‘dumb’ programming, accusing female executives of ‘dragging down the quality’ of programming for including ‘far too many’ cookery and gardening programs.

Image: Google images

The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) this year reported that women in the public service work long and hard hours, without access to flexible work arrangements or opportunities for career-benefiting training – which could answer that question. Underpaid and overworked, is it ‘dumb’ programming, or just specific to womens interests and probably well needed entertainment?

It’s also been reported that female politicians work harder than their male counterparts, who rely on assistants and ‘network’ more than actual work.

The media landscape has changed dramatically since the seventies and thankfully now includes many women, gone are the misogynistic days that denied women – aesthetically pleasing or not – airtime but one does wonder if doe-eyed Chris Bath, Ten’s bevy of blonde newsreaders or even Li Lin Chin are token efforts to equality.

Milne may be onto something though – a report from the University of San Francisco makes the very valid point that women and men differ when it comes to editing and programming. According to this report, the female influence on news stories differs to that of a male’s and is sadly stereotypical in that women are more likely to include emotional content, social issues and of course coverage relevant to, or about, women.

And in a world where men are used to holding on to the talking stick, of course that won’t fly. When men were solely in charge, they produced news for men and women had no option but to accept that - and be grateful that they were out of the kitchen.

But if we shake the top of the tree, will programming and the gender balance improve? Will pay equality result in equal representation in programming and boardrooms?

Sometimes ABC fails at straps.

Searching for Blu in Palermo, Buenos Aires

moving on entirely from self-reflection

Footbridge in Colegiales, Buenos Aires (my own image)

So I feel like it's time to offer a little bit of insight into the city of Buenos Aires. It's big and not so scary anymore but still, when faced with the idea of writing anything about it, I feel overwhelmed by the sheer extent of ideas and experiences from which to garner inspiration. So, maybe a bit boring, but I thought I'd start with things to do with traffic and movement around the city of Buenos Aires.

There are few things that I now realise about this place. The first thing I noticed was that traffic here appears to be really bloody scary. As in, things like lanes, indication and 'common' courtesy don't appear to mean much to anyone here. So far I have gathered that as long as you honk to inform another motorist you are behind/taking over/about to side-swipe them, you are in the right and should continue driving in this manner. Four lane main roads can actually be up to six lanes, and taxis and buses (colectivos) are kings of the road.

What is surprising about this is that until two weeks ago, I had not seen any traffic incidents where any vehicle/person appeared damaged. I did witness an amusing row between the bus driver of the colectivo I was taking and a micro (coach) when the driver of the micro nearly sideswiped the colectivo pulling away from the curb. The squabble lasted three or four red lights with each of them cursing each other out in Castellano, claiming their right to the road, and rather amusingly arousing the attention of several passengers on the colectivo who joined in the row, using the best parts of the super Italianised Spanish used by Porteños to make sure the coach driver knew he was in the wrong. I was sitting in the backseat trying not to laugh as more older women joined in the cussing at each light, feeling quite happy that both drivers had evaded disaster and that both vehicles were still in one piece.

The only other traffic incident I have seen here was again from the comfort (nb: sarcasm, these are often packed, stinky and sticky in the summer and during peak times slow and jerky) of a bondi (Lunfardo for colectivo). This particular incident looked deadly - traffic was slowed down for two blocks as two of three lanes were closed for about a block to make space for emergency crews who were at the scene of the brutal looking crash; it was only one car - a little white sedan had flipped over on its roof and while I have no real idea what happened, I can say that's been the only accident I've witnessed in spite of the craziness on the roads here.

Another recent experience helped me conclude that the level of insanity on roads in Buenos Aires doesn't necessarily indicate poor driving; rather it demonstrates a certain commitment to the need to rush at all times. The lesson learned here was that when you inform your driver that you would like to get to point B as quickly as possible, you're going to get there before your stomach, as the words 'as fast as you can' apparently transform cab drivers into rally drivers. Cabs are equipped with seatbelts here but until this particular incident I had never used one. The cabbie drove slowly enough until he reached a substantially large road with many lanes (Paseo Colón, I think) when he opened 'er up completely, I think clocking probably 90km/h in a 60km/h zone which was fine, until we came to a traffic light. In the far right lane, we would have rear-ended the car in front but very skilfully our rally driver maneouvred us across not two but THREE lanes into a space on the line. He sped off the line before it was green and my companion and I scrambled for our seatbelts, exchanging looks of terror mixed with some strange sort of delight - my reasoning for that is that if I was indeed about to die I was going to enjoy my last few moments. Honestly though, in hindsight I can say it was terrific. We arrived at the bus statoin with 8 minutes until our bus left - and approximately 5 minutes before my stomach. I was very impressed by our drivers' commitment to our need to be where we wanted to go in good time and his excellent handling of his vehicle so needless to say, he got a very good tip.

This collective experience has helped me conclude that public transport here is really good. Really really good. Coming from Canberra, I can safely say it's the best network I've ever used. I haven't even mentioned the subte (subway) but it is also amazing. While uncomfortable, the micro was also very good - long stretches in a confined space are never going to be great - and connects passengers to practically every part of the continent. I'm not sure I would ever recommend taking one from say Buenos Aires to Santiago or further, although the trip through the Andes would be breathtaking, but overall I will say all systems (colectivo, subte, cabs and micro) are efficient and affordable. Though colectivo can be very cramped - something to bemoan in the humid summers of Buenos Aires - the routes are comprehensive and for less than AUD 0.30c you can't really complain.

I guess coming from Canberra I am very shocked that across the board, public transport is preferable to owning your own car but I will say with admiration and respect that this is one system from which the ACT public transport system could learn a thing or two. It's also been endlessly beneficial to my cultural experience here as it is the lifeline of the city, and whether on the way to la facu (university) or on my way home from a boliche (nightclub) at 6am, I have been shoulder-to-shoulder with a brilliantly broad array of folk, an anthropological experience I would not trade for any amount of private transport.

some more argy bargy: how not to feel sorry for yourself (aka how to reinflate one's sense of self importance/confidence when the chips are down)

So managed to be ill for the last week, which was a fun experience! I did lots of stuff. Lots of sitting in the kitchen, lots of laying in bed, lots of drinking water, lots of feeling sorry for myself, lots of thinking about study, lots of lamenting and lots of not going to the gym.

Basically I took a week off the world. And like a sook, there is a reason for that.

I failed my first ever exam.

Monday afternoon saw me locked in a bathroom stall near my classroom after class, for the first Argen-time, crying because I felt like the world was against me and I HAVE NEVER FAILED ANYTHING BEFORE AND THE TEACHER IS A FRIZZY-HAIRED MEANIE AND ARGENTINA SUCKS!

That lasted a few minutes before I realised I hadn't cried since being here for reasons of self-pity like that and also hadn't cried in a bathroom stall possibly since college or maybe even since high school and that I should stop.

So I trudged the eight blocks from uni to my bus stop feeling very sorry for myself, and hating the teacher. Because it was her, and not the language barrier, nor my last minute (but what I felt to be thoroughly comprehensive) study that gave me the cold, heartless and hard desprobaló (fail) mark.

So I was sick and spent the week indulging in a fair amount of self pity, wondering about my experience and what it would amount to in the end and whether or not I should be very stubborn and just drop this unit to spite everyone involved (myself mostly) and why aren't I the most amazing non-native Spanish speaker ever?

And I guess I never thought about the real challenge that living in another country and learning a new language is. Essentially I am rewiring my brain to speak another language while trying to form new relationships, maintain a social life in order to do so, trying out new things and trying to absorb as much culture as humanly possible while avoiding being kidnapped and people-smuggled and trying to lead a balanced and healthy life. And what I have decided about this is is that it is really freaking hard.

Not impossible, but really hard. For a very verbal person who values expression and understanding, it is very hard. Not being able to understand clearly everything that is going on around me is difficult and furthermore not being able to articulate in my usual verbose and or eloquent (yeah I said that) style is also tough. It has been a very humbling experience though and I probably have never spent so many hours in class at least appearing to be attentive and quiet.

Furthermore, not being able to assert myself or share experiences (read: talk with abandon about everything ever or complain about stuff) with the fluidity to which I am accustomed is humbling -because now it isn't that I should keep my mouth shut, it's that I have no option because it doesn't contain the words or eloquence I feel such behaviour warrants. That I don't have at my disposal myriad words, like myriad, to express myself makes me feel like a child, and also stupid that I can't express myself like my peers or even to the standard to which I am accustomed.

So I find myself listening hard to what others are saying, to try and understand the language in all of its entirety - flow, sentence construction, rhythm, accent, basically everything that is idiosyncratic - and to try and pick it up, and I guess I have never spent so much time thinking about what is being said to me and how I can respond.

So it's humbling because I feel dumb and like someone who has to relearn something they previously were very capable of doing and basically I guess my frustration with this constant challenge caught up with me and I spent a lame week being sick and doing nothing (maybe a little bit of comfort eating, but that's not a good thing so doesn't count) and beating myself up for it. Then today I was chatting with a friend from the States in a similar boat - it was his last day in Buenos Aires and we were talking about his experience here and how we both felt about the language thing after three months of living it, and he helped me see that the entire process - living, being and learning a new language - is really bloody tough!

And for this - that I will have survived the semester while avoiding kidnap and maintaining a social life in which I feel I have made some really excellent friends and met a bunch of people from all over the world - I will not beat myself up for my lack of enthusiasm for this class, retaking the test and nor will I hold ill-sentiment toward my professor for failing me.

The wealth of this experience for all of the ups and downs that have come with it is probably worth that of a failed unit and hey mo-fo! I spent a semester of my university career in another country and learned a complete new way of life and I think that's pretty bloody swell!

Now I believe all those dudes who were like, 'YOU'RE SO BRAVE' and 'EXCHANGE IS AWESOME AND NOT FOR DUDES WHO CAN'T HANDLE LIFE THROWING ALL KINDS OF CRAZY SHITS AT DEM! IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE' and to whom I was like, 'sha, duh, whatevz!'

PLUS

I also feel better about failing my first ever exam. So I feel like all is well that ends in a happy revelation.