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On the 28th of April 1996, 35 people were killed, and 37 were wounded, at Port Arthur, Tasmania, by a single man.  Although a horrific crime in its own right, that event should have been a wake-up call for Australian Police agencies in regard to training their First Response Officers in the area of high-risk incidents beyond the basic “cordon and contain” procedure. The initial Police attendance at that massacre did not stop the crime, but resulted in the Officers becoming targeted themselves. It’s only luck that caused the offender to not flee and kill more people. There was absolutely nothing to stop him. That situation today is commonly referred to overseas as an “Active Shooter” situation.  The resulting change in Police first response policies towards high-risk incidents in Australia has resulted in this:   Nothing.   Australian Police first responders, the “General Duties” Officers, are as untrained and unequipped now to deal with that type of situation, or even something far less horrific, than they were over 11 years ago. That is not a reflection of our Police, but of the attitudes, apathy, and lack of awareness of our Police Management and Politicians.   In 1999, April 20th to be exact, 13 people were killed, and 23 wounded in the massacre at Columbine High School, Colorado in the US. Some of these people were killed whilst Police first responders followed procedure and set up a cordon around the incident to “contain” it. This resulted in an almost immediate understanding by major US Law Enforcement Agencies for an adjustment of policies and training towards “Active Shooter” incidents. Imagine if Australia had developed that training three years prior, and made it available to our US Law Enforcement cousins?   To date, forty-six Australian Police officers have been killed in the line of duty since April 1996. If world-class training had been able to protect just one of those Officers, then it would have been time and money well spent.  If you don’t agree with me, then why don’t you ask the families, colleagues, and friends of any one of those Officers what they think?   The Australasian Centre for Policing Research was responsible for providing all Australian Police jurisdictions with national Guidelines by which each jurisdiction agrees to comply with. (Note: The ACPR has been replaced with the ANZPSA – The Australia New Zealand Policing Support Agency). What I find concerning is that alleged experts in the area of Police Use of Force training in Australia all had a hand in creating these guidelines, but the guidelines themselves are inadequate, sometimes illogical, and when the guidelines do make sense, they are ignored or misinterpreted by the jurisdictions that agreed to comply with them in the first place.   To start with, there are two main publications that relate to Use of Force by Australian Police. The first one is titled, National Guidelines for incident management, conflict resolution, and use of force: 2004. The second publication is National Guidelines Compendium, Police Use of lethal Force, Deployment of Police in High Risk Situations, Deployment of Police Negotiators. Having read both these guideline publications quite a few times, my first issue with them is that there is a glaring gap between “General Duties” Officers responding to a one-offender quickly-resolved incident, to incidents requiring the Police Tactical Unit to attend to a cordoned incident in suburbia. There is no recognition of Active Shooter incidents, in which General Duties Officers are usually the only available solution for an hour, two hours, or even longer in remote areas. These guidelines were written nearly a full decade after Port Arthur, and yet there is absolutely no recognition of incidents requiring General Duties officers to respond to mobile killers, (active shooters), or even incidents where injured and dying Officers need to be rescued before they die. These guidelines, and the persons responsible for their creation, fail to acknowledge some very serious incidents that have occurred in Australia since the 28th of April 1996. This is a little confusing since the Qualification, Training and Counselling Provision number 20 of the National Guidelines Compendium, Police Use of lethal Force, Deployment of Police in High Risk Situations, Deployment of Police Negotiators states, “Law Enforcement Agencies should review their training programmes and operational procedures in the light of particular incidents.”   The 28th of April, 1996, should have been the date that Law Enforcement agencies in Australia realised the real need for realistic and relevant training for our protectors. But over 11 years later, and that training is still not available in this country, either from the Government, or privately. For the Police who are first to respond to all dangerous incidents in this country, their “training” is the exact same annual or bi-annual very basic shooting techniques or defensive tactics instruction that those Officers spending their whole day behind a desk, receive. I’m sorry, but it should be plain to see that there are some pretty big issues with that process.   Some, or even most, Australian Police truly believe that their in-service training is adequate for General Duties’ personnel attending dangerous incidents. It should be glaringly obvious to anyone that spending an hour or less, once, or even twice a year, going through very basic drills to achieve “competence” does not prepare anyone for incidents in which they may be required to use Lethal Force to defend themself or someone else. Unfortunately the National Guidelines for incident management, conflict resolution, and use of force: 2004 state in Guideline 29 “…in-service training for re-certification, incorporating incident management, conflict resolution, and use of force, should be conducted at least once per year.” The guidelines are talking about re-certification, but Australian Police agencies have used this to justify training once a year on the firing range. I am not aware of a single Police organisation in Australia that has complied with the next guideline, being number 30. This states, “…police organisations should give consideration to develop flexible training options that provide officers with opportunities for continued improvement of operational safety skills outside of re-certification training.” If anyone reading this article has ever had their organisation provide them with opportunities to conduct further training apart from the annual re-cert, then please let me know, as I’d be very interested to hear more about it.   In this day and age of legal liability, it seems to be that the attitude of our Police Managers is that it is easier / cheaper to replace a killed or injured officer than it is to provide those officers with realistic training opportunities. As long as the Police organisation has complied with the guidelines and legislation that outline the certification of an Officer’s “competence” in required operational safety skills, then it is very easy for the organisation to state that they have complied with their requirements to “train” that Officer. This thinking appears to have been supported in Coronial matters where Police have been killed on duty. What the Coroners have failed to acknowledge though, is that the “competence” of an Officer is a legal requirement, and not a training requirement. To be even more pointed, the term “competence” is by definition a legal term, and not a term that has anything at all to do with assessing the suitability of training.   Training should be an on-going and escalating process that has as its goal the continuous improvement of skills, and not merely the maintenance of the most basic level. The National Guidelines for incident management, conflict resolution, and use of force: 2004, when talking about continuous improvement, briefly, but importantly, states that in the area of training, Australasian Police organisations should be “providing the best training”. This is not merely being able to stand up and state that Australia provides the best training for the most basic level required to avoid law-suits against the employer or Government, but the best training possible to provide Police Officers with advanced, relevant, and realistic training to provide them the best possible chance to not only survive dangerous incidents, but to win those incidents.   Remember, the vast majority of times, it is “General Duties” Officers who are the first Officers at any life-threatening scene, and they are the Officers who you and I would expect to be able to stop the threat, protect themselves, protect the public, and then walk safely home to their loved ones after just another day in “the job”.   Everyone needs to understand a very basic concept that is ignored by Police Management. “Training” is not something that is done to protect the Police organisation from liability, but is something done to improve the skills of the person receiving the training. Doug Nicholson served for over 9 years with the Northern Territory Police Force, during which time he worked in remote Aboriginal Communities, was a General Duties Shift Supervisor at the busiest Station in the jurisdiction and became a qualified Workplace Assessor and Trainer. He has travelled to the US for advanced training, as well as worked in both Afghanistan and Iraq as a Security contractor, and is now studying for a degree in Security, Terrorism, and Counter-Terrorism. He is the editor for Response Australia eMagazine, an online publication for Policing in Australia.

Doug can be contacted at editor@responseaustralia.net