Call for transparency comes as coroner criticises officers for handcuffing ‘obviously dead’ Essendon man in 2008 shooting

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

A Victorian coroner has repeated calls for an independent observer to be present when police interview other officers involved in fatal shootings, saying there is a “palpable” public perception of lack of transparency and collusion.

In a finding handed down on Friday, Coroner Audrey Jamieson cleared police of any wrongdoing over the 2008 shooting of an Essendon man, Samir Ograzden, but criticised officers for handcuffing the man even after he was “obviously dead”.



Ograzden, 25, fled from two officers when they discovered drugs, a weapon and more than $10,000 in cash in his car after pulling him over one evening in May 2008.



Police pursued him into a Kings Way car park, where the convicted drug dealer shot an officer, Senior Constable David McHenry, in the leg. Ograzden was shot in the neck and killed when Constable Adam McKenzie, a junior officer on his first night shift, returned fire.



But the coroner said the shooting was “reasonable and appropriate” in the circumstances, accepting that “it would have been an abrogation of the officers’ responsibility to the public had they not pursued Samir”.



However, she criticised officers who arrived at the scene around 17 minutes later for handcuffing Ograzden despite the fact the man had been lying prone with “a large amount of blood” coming from his neck. “The decision to handcuff an obviously dead man was unnecessary,” Jamieson said.



She echoed calls made by state coroner, in a 2008 report into the police shooting of 15-year-old Tyler Cassidy, that an “institutionally independent, legally trained” outsider be appointed to observe police when they interview officers involved in shooting suspects.



“Whilst police remain the investigators in police-related fatalities, the concern about the perception of a lack of transparency as to the nature of the investigation will not abate,” she said. “The public perception of [lack of] transparency and collusion are still palpable.”



Michelle McDonnell, a senior policy adviser with the Federation of Community Legal Centres, said an independent body should be involved in investigating police shootings, as is the case in jurisdictions such as Northern Ireland, England, Wales, Ontario province in Canada, and New Zealand.



“Our argument is that police cannot effectively investigate themselves,” McDonnell said, likening it to “an employer investigating an employee’s workplace death”.



Victoria’s Department of Justice has resisted these calls, saying they “risk interfering with in the operational independence of Victoria police in conducting these investigations in a timely manner”.



There are around 16 police-related deaths each year in Victoria, with a 2013 studying finding that Queensland had the highest rate in Australia of fatal encounters with police.



Jamieson also pointed to failures in Victoria Police computer systems that meant Ograzden was free on parole the night he was killed despite being charged with two drug offences the previous year.



She said the police who charged Ograzden were not made aware that he was on parole, and so were not able to alert the parole board, which would have potentially returned Ograzden to prison.



“In the event that this had occurred and Samir had been apprehended, he may have been in custody on 13 May 2008,” the coroner said.



Shortcomings with Victoria Police IT systems were in the spotlight earlier this year when 11-year-old Luke Batty was killed by his mentally ill father, who was wanted on five arrest warrants. Police had interviewed the man a month before, but were never alerted of the outstanding warrants.