1. I agree with the Coroner that the Lindt seige would have been very difficult for any police force anywhere to handle - it wouldn't have been possible to determine whether the animal had a bomb which could have killed everyone had he been shot dead earlier. Yes, the police waited too long to take action. Allowing the perpetrator to call the shots instead of having a proactive plan of attack was an elementary mistake I would have thought. But as the police spokesman said yesterday, whether the police had made the first move or not would not have guaranteed there would have been no deaths. Still, I hope the policy going forward will be for police to take the initiative not the terrorist.
2. It's clear that the police were neither adequately trained nor equipped to handle the siege situation.
The police were communicating through third parties to find out what was going on in that cafe. TV watchers sitting at home had a clearer picture of the seige situation than the police force on the ground.
There was no communications centre handling the intel for police, their own messages were not getting through to other police personnel - the van intended to be used as a comms link had been lying idle in disrepair for years. An astounding admission. The seige squad had been issued with one mobile phone for the operation - did I read that right?!
The higher echelons of police management need a serious ass-kicking for these lapses in support for their troops on the ground.
I'm surprised the Coroner didn't have stronger words in his summary about this.
3. Senior police acting on advice from an inexperienced negotiator/inexperienced psychologist? I can hardly believe this. What do you say about this situation? it's a tragic farce. Once again a lack of support for these kind of operations coming from senior police levels. Anyone familiar with TV cop shows knows the importance of skilled negotiators, but there was no direct communication with Monis anyway... the number of holes in police preparedness just goes on and on.
Again, I'm surprised the Coroner didn't have stronger words in his summary about this.
Australian police forces have a long way to go in being prepared for seige situations if the Lindt cafe seige is any benchmark for how they deal with such things.
The troops on the ground did the best they could with the support (or lack of it) they were given. They are courageous people who risked their lives in the situation not knowing what they would face. Persecution of the troops on the ground or second-guessing their actions when they only have fractions of a second to make decisions is not called for. The tragedy of the Lindt cafe seige is due to Monis not the police on the ground - though the lack of preparedness of the police for such incidents should be pursued to the highest police levels.
Monis was a person who should never have been on the street in the first place. It turns out that the DPP person responsible for allowing bail was another novice with insufficient knowledge of the bail laws of this country. Yet another hole in the system...
But don't expect any action to be taken here, there are scores of cases which have led to tragedy due to the workings of the DPP and it's likely there will be scores to follow.
It remains to be seen whether any lessons have been learned from the Lindt cafe seige, for there will surely be similar incidents in the future. We have a broken system at many levels not just the bail system - the parole system allowing dangerous criminals to roam the steeets and repeat their crimes is another area for rigourous investigation. I haven't seen many instances yet where any of the holes have ever been truly fixed.
