It started with Princess Diana's death in a car crash in Paris. Ordinary people started leaving flower bouquets at Kensington Palace, her home in London and over the days this grew to monumental proportions. The images flashed around the world and leaving flowers and other items of endearment became a custom that persists today. This same phenomenon has become customary wherever terrorist attacks have maimed victims in western cities.
The latest outrage happened in Melbourne when a drug affected man with a violent history went on a rampage in a stolen car in the city centre and deliberately mowed down innocent people. Five died and a score more were injured before that driver was shot and subdued by police. He is now in a police cell and the legal world is pondering how to ensure he is adequately punished - and what can be done to prevent a repeat of such incidents.
Of course, after such incidents all the observers have 20-20 vision. The police made several attempts to intercept and stop that stolen car and each time the pursuit was called off because of safety concerns. Every day, drivers speed off and fail to stop when directed by police but incidents where one then goes on to commit wholesale murder by using the car as a weapon is thankfully rare.
What will come under the microscope is the police procedure on pursuits and how that contributed to these deaths. The sticking point seems to be that at no stage is the final decision being made by the officers in the pursuing car. That decision is made by a senior sitting in an office far from the scene who has no direct vision of events and is relying on audio comments. That officer is very aware that if he or she authorises a continued pursuit that ends with a crash and public deaths it will be examined in a coroners enquiry - and adverse criticism can be career threatening. There is a strong incentive to play safe at all times.
Sadly, the pursuing police report that there were opportunities to take down the fleeing car and its driver with safety when it became immobile in traffic, but this request was refused. In all fairness, the police had no reason to suspect that this driver had murder in mind and we do have laws in place to deliver extra punishment to drivers who instigate a police pursuit. Sky's law was enacted when a pursued car crashed into an innocent family car and caused the death of a child.
Unfortunately,there is every chance that our efforts to restrict police pursuits in the interests of public safety are actually increasing the number of times drivers make a decision to try and outrun the police. They have an incentive to reach very high speeds and drive dangerously in the understanding that this will result in the pursuit being cancelled. It is a form of bravado that incites some young drivers to take such a chance.
Pursuits are only taken by police who have been specially trained in driving techniques at the police academy and have reached an acceptable standard. When an opportunity occurs to take down a pursued car it is usually a split second decision. That is not appropriate to trying to convey the reason to a third party who has no view of the situation - and who will make that decision.
The obvious outcome of this Melbourne tragedy would be to give more decision autonomy to the police drivers in pursuit situations - but with the responsibility for adverse outcomes resting on their shoulders. A police officers use of a firearm is a personal decision that is removed from the usual police reliance on rank to maintain the decision chain. Ending or continuing a pursuit is a similar evaluation that awaits an on the spot decision !
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