NSW police trained to shoot terrorists on sight, rather than negotiate

Updated

New South Wales Police are being trained to shoot terrorists on sight rather than try to contain them and negotiate, in a change of policy prompted by recent attacks.

Acting Police Commissioner Nick Kaldas said the new approach was needed in the terrorist environment where "you're dealing with someone who is there with a preconceived aim of dying and who wants to kill as many people as they possibly can".

He said in that scenario, it was "far more urgent for police to intervene".

"In situations where people's lives are being threatened as we speak and perhaps being killed even - that would be a terrorist incident - in those cases we certainly would have to look at it differently.

"We would have to react differently and we would have to move almost immediately."

However, Mr Kaldas said, in most other cases where police deal with armed offenders, officers will still try to use the "contain and negotiate" approach that has been in place for two decades.

"For example, if someone is in a domestic violence situation or if someone has been cornered doing an armed robbery, they're not there to die, they don't wish to die, that's not their ultimate aim, that's not their objective," he said.

"For us, contain and negotiate is about containing a situation so nobody else puts them in harm's way, and it's then about negotiating that person out of that situation.

"Experience and statistics make it very clear that the longer you go in those sorts of situations, the more chance there is of it ending peacefully. But certainly in the terrorism situation that's not the case."

NSW Police learning FBI tactics

The comments come three weeks after police launched an armed offender training program, based on tactics used by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

NSW Police are also looking at increasing the weaponry available to officers to deal with the threat of terrorism on Australian soil.

NSW counter-terrorism Commander Mark Murdoch said there had been no specific terrorism threat made against Australia in the wake of the Paris attack.

"Right around the country, all jurisdictions, all law enforcement in every state and territory of Australia are working very, very hard right around the clock to monitor what's happening here and overseas, to make sure if the situation does change, we're all over it," he said.

He has conceded the terrorist tactic of using encrypted communications was a challenge, but he said police were working to circumvent it.

"It hasn't, as yet, here in Australia at least, caused us any drastic problem, but it's certainly something we can readily deal with," he said.

"What it has done also is reinvigorate the need for old fashioned detective work, in many respects.

"It's not something we're afraid of, it's not something that we haven't seen here and it's something I'm confident we can work around."

He said Australian law enforcement authorities were among the best in the world.

"I cannot stand here and give anyone a guarantee we'll stop all terrorism, but so far so good.

"Our people are amongst the best going, not only nationally but internationally, and I'm confident we are doing all we can to address the threat that we face in Australia."

Victoria Police keep tactics under wraps

Victoria Police would not reveal if officers were being trained to shoot armed extremists on sight, like their counterparts in NSW.

Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton briefed Cabinet Ministers about the state's counter-terrorism measures at a meeting in Wangaratta.

He said Victoria Police had changed its policy, but he not would discuss details.

"We don't call it shoot to kill, but we have had a long-standing tradition of cordon contain, as part of our processes," he said.

"We have done a reassessment of that earlier this year in relation to terrorism events.

"We don't go into detail about our tactics, but from about my time starting as Chief Commissioner, we did have a change of policy in that area."

Topics: terrorism, police, nsw, sydney-2000

First posted