Australian police given powers to 'shoot first' in terrorist situations

BY JENNI RYALL

Following the recent Paris attacks, Australian police in one state have announced new powers that will allow officers to "shoot first" when dealing with terrorists.

New South Wales (NSW) Police on the ground will be able to decide when a situation warrants the new policy. Currently, officers are trained to "contain and negotiate" a situation.

Officers are currently undergoing a new armed offender training program with FBI-trained instructors, according to the Daily Telegraph. It is expected to take years to roll out the program.

Acting Commissioner Nick Kaldas told the publication that despite having the "contain and negotiate" policy in place for two decades, criminals trained in terrorism are often prepared to die and don't want to be captured. He said this meant police had to change their tact.

"The ground has shifted. We have to change our approach ... One of the features of terrorism is these people are not like normal criminals, their mentality is entirely different," he said. "They don't want to get captured and they may well be prepared to die. They're jihadis, we've got to act differently."

Kaldas told reporters Tuesday the "contain and negotiate" policy will be referred to unless an officer is in a situation where an armed offender is putting lives in immediate danger or people have already been killed.

"I need to stress we are not doing away with negotiating, and I suspect in most cases it will be the way we deal with these sorts of incidents," Kaldas explained. "Certainly, in situations where we see a more serous matter, where people lives are being threatened — and killed even — in those cases we would have to look at it differently.

"If police see evidence of people being killed they have to act. We're simply trying to equip them so they can react in a better way," he said.

NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Murdoch said the weekend's attacks in France and the Charlie Hebdo attack in January have been "game changers" and NSW Police needed to act.

"We saw this was coming," Murdoch said. "We weren’t going to sit on our heels and wait for it to come to us before we did something about it."

One such situation where "shoot first" may be activated is an incident like the Sydney siege in December. After hours of negotiating with the gunman Man Haron Monis, two victims were shot and killed as police stormed the Lindt Cafe building in Sydney. The gunman was killed by police.

The move also follows a recent terrorist attack outside the NSW Police headquarters in Parramatta in October, which saw a police employee murdered by a 15-year-old boy in broad daylight. It is believed the boy had links to extremist organisations.

http://mashable.com/2015/11/17/nsw-police-shoot-first/#IXJA8R1VtiqO