Justice group CopWatch calls for review of police training
Sarah Wotherspoon
December 12, 2008

A COMMUNITY justice organisation has called for a review of police training after officers shot dead a 15-year-old boy last night.

CopWatch – an international organisation that ‘gathers information about injustices that happen at the hands of the police’ – said the shooting should also not be used to advance the argument for equipping police with Tasers.

CopWatch spokeswoman Liz Jones said police were now trained to shoot to kill and called for a review of training procedures.

“We think this is a complete exaggeration and disproportionate for three out of four officers to shoot to kill a 15-year-old boy,” she said.

“We don’t understand where a situation can have arisen where police could not have stopped him.

“Why are they trained to shoot to kill when they could have shot him in the limbs.”

Ms Jones said her sympathies were with the boy’s family and said an independent investigation into the incident was needed.

And Ms Jones said the shooting should not be used to push advance the argument to arm police with Tasers, which she said could be misused.

Teen shot dead by police
Mex Cooper, Andrea Petrie, Reko Rennie
December 12, 2008

A senior policeman has defended the actions of fellow officers who shot dead a teenage boy in Melbourne’s north last night, claiming the youth said “I’m going to kill you” before he was gunned down.

At a press conference this morning, Assistant Commissioner Tim Cartwright said the officers had been confronted by the knife-wielding 15-year-old at the All Nations Park in Northcote.

Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Tim Cartwright describes the events that led to the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old boy in Northcote.

Assistant Commissioner Cartwright said the boy had threatened the officers with knives while saying to one officer, “‘kill me, I’m going to kill you’.”

He said the threatened officer backed away into a stairwell. The cornered officer then fired on the boy as did two others as they tried to defend their colleague.

Assistant Commissioner Cartwright said the police officers had done everything they could before opening fire on the youth at the skate park.

“I don’t think the police were trigger-happy but that’s why we have the Coroner,” he said.

“The members have reacted as we would want them… they’ve ultimately had no choice.”

He said it was not known how many shots were fired and the incident was over in a matter of two to three minutes.

The teenager is believed to have stolen two knives from a nearby Kmart after threatening staff.

Assistant Commissioner Cartwright said the youth had earlier tried to take kitchen knives from his home but his family had disarmed him.

He said there was no suggestion the boy suffered from mental illness or was drug-affected at the time. It was not known what had triggered his rage.

“The family’s rightly very, very upset,” he said.

Police were called to the Northcote Plaza Shopping Centre car park about 9.20pm last night after receiving up to four calls from the public about an agitated male carrying knives.

Assistant Commissioner Cartwright said the officers – two female constables, a leading senior constable and a senior constable – had tried to calm the armed teenager who ran a short distance to the skate park before approaching one of the police officers and threatening to kill them.

Seconds after a warning shot was fired into the ground, three of the officers shot at the youth who was standing up to 14 metres away.

“This is a dreadful tragedy,” Assistant Commissioner Cartwright said.

He defended the actions of the officers and said they had been trained to fire at the central body mass rather than shoot to wound.

“The movies would portray that you can shoot to disarm people. That’s not our experience. These are events that are life-threatening, people are extremely nervous, agitated, scared.”

Assistant Commissioner Cartwright said he could not say if the use of Tasers would have saved the teenager’s life and Victoria Police had not ruled out deploying the stun-guns in the future.

The lives of the teen’s family and the officers had been changed forever by the shooting, he said.

The Homicide Squad and Coroner are investigating the death.

Assistant Commissioner Cartwright said the Coroner would look at whether the teen had wanted police to kill him.

Search and rescue unit officers were this morning using metal detectors to scour the scene at the skate park. The boy’s body has reportedly been removed.

Plains-clothes police officers were this morning canvassing members of the public for information, while a broad cordon surrounding the park had been tightened around the scene.

At a separate press conference last night, Mr Cartwright described the incident as a “dreadful tragedy”.

“Our condolences are certainly with the family,” he said, adding that the police officers – two men and two women from Preston and Northcote – were “pretty shaken”.

“We shouldn’t lose members of the community this way,” he said. “We train our police members, they’ve foamed him, they talked to him and they’ve done what they can (before he was shot). It’s a dreadful event.”

Local resident George Markopoulos said he heard five or six shots fired within a few seconds.

“I knew straight away they were gunshots,” he said. “I’ve been living here all my life and it’s the first time anything like this has happened.”

Another resident, Wally Taleb, described it as “scary, shocking and not something you see every day”.

Police have requested surveillance footage from inside the Kmart store which is believed to show the boy slashing boxes in an agitated state prior to the shooting.

This morning a woman, who appeared to be aged in her 50s, laid flowers at the site where the teenager lost his life.

And police have escorted a man and woman, consoling each other, to the scene.

Three young men, who appeared to be in their late teens and who were also comforting each other, have arrived at the skate park with a bouquet of flowers and placed them on the skate ramp.

They silently surveyed the scene where the teenager was shot.

Boy put in cell to be bashed
REBEKAH CAVANAGH
December 12th, 2008

POLICE used force to arrest a drunk 15-year-old boy, before putting him in a cell with a violent Aboriginal man and saying “have fun”.

The Northern Territory News can reveal that police then turned a blind eye while the teen was punched up to five times by the man.

The cops then returned and moved the man to another cell before telling the teen “you got bashed by a black”.

The teen was told by police the next morning he only had a black eye because he was “racist”.

The ordeal was detailed in the NT Ombudsman’s 2007-2008 annual report, obtained by the NT News yesterday.

It was one of 274 complaints against Territory police received by the Ombudsman in the financial year.

The incident happened on August 25-26, 2006.

The report said two of the officers involved were charged with assault but the DPP later withdrew the charges.

But a complaint about the incident was made to the NT Ombudsman and a joint review committee has recommended Police Commissioner Paul White apologise to the victim for his members actions.

The annual report said the drama started when police tried to arrest the teen, who was drinking with about 50 friends at East Point Reserve in Darwin.

The teenager admitted he was drunk.

He also told the Ombudsman that he was yelling obscenities about the arresting officer’s mother and daughter at the time of the arrest.

He said during the arrest he was punched in the left eye by one of his arresting officers and then slammed into the police vehicle about four times.

He told the Ombudsman when more members arrived he was thrown on the ground and dragged, before being picked up and thrown head first into the cage of the paddy wagon.

He then accused the police of driving “roughly” to the Darwin Watch House.

The report revealed that while the teen was at the watch house reception counter being processed an Aboriginal man made signals towards him that he wanted to fight him.

It was this same man that police later locked in the cell with the teen.

Police then left the teen in a cell by himself where the teen states that loud classical music was played all night and that he had to listen to the Aboriginal man in a nearby cell laughing about how he had bashed him.

The report said the joint review committee found that the police made no effort to call the boy’s parents until the end of the maximum period of custody.

It also revealed that under the NT Police Custody Manual, police cells should only be used as a last resort for the custody of intoxicated persons.

It said the officers involved failed in their duty of care by putting the teenager in the same cell with the Aboriginal man when the hostility between the two was clearly displayed in the foyer.

It noted that the watch house keeper did not make the required journal entries about the injuries suffered by the teenager or provide any medical treatment.

Outrage at police ‘Melbourne West’ recruitment video
Paul Anderson
December 12, 2008 12:00am

A VICTORIA Police video is using images of violent clashes with drunks and a confrontation with soccer hooligans to recruit officers to work in a city station.

The internal “BlueTube” film, seen by the Herald Sun, suggests suburban police sit around yawning, longing for action in the city.

The portrayal of the suburban officers in the video, Melbourne West -Do You Have What it Takes? has insulted sections of the force and the police union.

The promotional film, which at first appears to be a parody of police life at a suburban station, is part of a police-approved recruitment drive for Melbourne West.

The Herald Sun believes police are having trouble recruiting officers for the station, partly because most of the work is dealing with violent drink and drug-affected revellers.

Controlling the city after dark, particularly on weekends, is a priority for police.

The two-minute video, seen far left, begins with two suburban uniformed officers loafing to a lullaby soundtrack.

They shake their heads at the lack of work as a caption says: “It’s so boring here.”

Later in the shift another officer says: “Look what’s happening at West.” His colleague, sitting with his feet up on a desk, replies: “Wish we were there . . .”

The music then becomes dramatic, with a video collage showing a mixture of images that end in flames.

Other footage includes police fighting and arresting violent trouble-makers and dodging flares at a soccer riot.

Words such as “Rewarding” and “Fun” flash up on the screen throughout.

“Clearly they need to attract people to Melbourne West,” Police Association secretary Sen-Sgt Greg Davies said.

“And there’s nothing wrong with working at Melbourne West . . . but to portray police working anywhere other than central Melbourne as being lazy layabouts with nothing to do is just wrong.

“It’s offensive. This is given clearance at the highest level, and it portrays police in suburban stations as bludgers reading the paper.

“Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Suburban officers said they were angry at being portrayed as layabouts.

“Representing suburban coppers like that is a joke,” one said.

“It is a slight on every hard-working copper at suburban stations.”

Senior police sources have defended the video, saying it had to be a true reflection of the work done on city duties.

A police spokeswoman said the video was made with police equipment at no extra cost to the force.

It was designed, created, filmed and edited by members of the Melbourne West station.

“There was never any intention to offend anyone. It’s designed to be light-hearted,” the spokesman said.

Yes. How hilarious.

Police Integrity Commission recommends charges against NSW officers
Natalie O’Brien
December 09, 2008

THE NSW police corruption watchdog has recommended charging three officers after they allegedly faked breathalyser tests to cover up for workmates and their relatives caught drink-driving.

The Police Integrity Commission has recommended criminal charges of intending to pervert the course of justice be laid against the officers from the country NSW stations of Moree and Orange.

The release of the PIC report yesterday into the separate incidents that took place last year, reveals that in both cases on-duty officers allegedly blew into a breathalyser machine instead of the alleged culprits, resulting in zero readings.

It has been recommended that Senior Constable Phillip Smith and Constable James Boaden from Moree face charges as well as Senior Constable Mark Christie from Orange.

In its report to parliament on operations Pegasus and Luno, the PIC said it decided to investigate the cases of alleged misconduct in two separate country area local commands because they involved similar situations and the same misconduct issues.

The PIC determined to hold public hearings to “highlight the type of misconduct which in many circumstances may go undetected”.

Officers who test positive for alcohol are offered rehabilitation counselling while those who test positive to drugs are liable for dismissal.

Secret police files leaked to alleged crime bosses
Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker
December 2, 2008

TOP-SECRET Victoria Police files have been leaked to alleged crime bosses and killers, compromising federal and state drug trafficking investigations.

In one of the most serious security breaches in Australian law enforcement, the leaked information came from the state surveillance squad, which conducts physical and technical surveillance on crime targets.

Alleged drug baron John Higgs, a founder of the Black Uhlans outlaw motorcycle gang, received information from the leaked files, as did other members of his syndicate.

At least two other Melbourne men — one an alleged murderer and the other a suspected drug trafficker — also received their confidential surveillance records. One fled overseas after obtaining copies of the files.

The leak is the latest in a series of corruption scandals to entangle the Victoria Police since 2001 and will prompt new calls for a full inquiry into the links between organised crime and serving and former police.

The revelations will also put pressure on the State Government over its previous commitments to reform Victoria Police’s information-handling processes after repeated police files scandals in recent years.

The Office of Police Integrity and the Victoria Police are investigating the latest leak and senior police yesterday briefed the surveillance squad about the investigations. The Australian Federal Police, the Australian Crime Commission and other agencies have been informed of the security breach.

OPI director Michael Strong said: “Information security within the Victoria Police has long been of concern to the OPI and has been addressed in several of our public reports.”

Mr Strong said he was conducting “a comprehensive independent review” of police information security. “Any breach can have serious operational issues and even put lives at risk. Victoria Police needs to give the issue a high priority.”

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said investigators were “vigorously pursuing” those responsible for the leaks and “that the vast majority of people in the (surveillance) unit are professional”. She said Superintendent Paul Sheridan would review the unit’s management and operations and that the force was implementing a range of information security reforms.

The latest leaks have compromised Victoria Police investigations, while related probes by the crime commission and the federal police are believed to have been affected.

Surveillance officers create files detailing the movements and associates of a criminal target. If a suspect obtains a file, he will see how long police have been watching him. This can compromise investigations or give criminals warning they could be charged.

Some of the information leaked related to the AFP’s Operation Inca, which led to the arrest in August of Higgs and others over the world’s largest ecstasy importation.

The Victoria Police surveillance squad monitored several of Inca’s criminal targets during the operation’s early stages.

Over the past two decades, Higgs’ crime syndicate has repeatedly received leaked or stolen police files.

Suspected drug trafficker Mohammed Oueida fled overseas fearing he was to be arrested after he received surveillance files revealing he was under investigation. It is not known if has returned to Australia.

Higgs and Oueida were connected to an alleged crime syndicate — other members are also suspected of receiving leaked information — pursued by state and federal drug trafficking investigators. A Victoria Police operation named Agamas stalled in March because the syndicate pulled out of an alleged importation. It is unknown if this was related to leaked files.

Alleged murderer Bassam Tiba — who was wanted over a 2004 killing in Melbourne until his arrest last month — was also leaked information from the surveillance squad police files.

Federal police officers discovered Tiba had obtained information from surveillance files after they located and arrested him last month in the Solomon Islands.

The leaks suggest there are serious flaws with the Victoria Police’s creation and handling of files on surveillance targets.

A former Victoria Police crime department officer familiar with the surveillance squad’s operations said the handling of information had been ad hoc, unorganised and hard to audit.

He said the ineffective supervision and technology used to collate and store surveillance files was a result of poor resourcing by the State Government.

Last month, the outgoing Victorian Commissioner for Law Enforcement Data Security, Laurie Bebbington, described as “an ongoing concern” the force’s failure to implement its central information security policy to govern the storage and handling of all sensitive information.

Ms Bebbington said the policy was “in a perpetual state of review, edit and partial completion” and there was no sign of when it would be finished.

In late 1996, Higgs and his associates were suspected of masterminding the theft of files from drug squad headquarters, including those detailing the identity of a policy informer. That theft remains unsolved.

In late 2003, close associates of Higgs were among a host of underworld figures who obtained stolen police files detailing the activities of corruption and gangland informer Terence Hodson, who was later murdered along with his wife.

The leaks are likely to further damage relationships between federal and state police.

The Age has known about the leaks for several months, but delayed publishing to avoid jeopardising the investigation.

Bungle may let bent cops escape
Keith Moor
November 24, 2008

EXCLUSIVE: A STING operation against police corruption in the sex industry may have been brought unstuck by government bungling.

Officers at a metropolitan police station were being investigated for allegedly owning an unlicensed brothel and demanding sex and cash from street prostitutes.

But investigators fear a blunder by a government agency may have tipped them off.

Probe details were included in the annual report of Special Investigations Monitor David Jones tabled in Parliament recently.

It said police connected to a metropolitan station were suspected of:

OWNING an unlicensed brothel.

STEALING goods and drugs from sex workers and assaulting prostitutes.

SUPPLYING and possessing illicit drugs.

HAVING improper or criminal associations with drug dealers, drug users and sex workers.

ATTEMPTING to pervert the course of justice.

IMPROPERLY using information that was held by police on sex workers.

Police Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe last week wrote to Mr Jones raising the force’s concerns about the details made public.

Ethical Standards Department chief Luke Cornelius criticised the SIM for not consulting police before including sensitive information in his report.

Asked if the SIM’s annual report might have warned suspect police, Assistant Commissioner Cornelius said: “Well, you might draw that conclusion.”

“The publication of that level of detail, without prior consultation with us, was very concerning,” Mr Cornelius said.

“The thing that concerns me is that publicly ventilating areas of focus that we might have, or the geographic locations that we might be focusing on, does compromise our ability to effectively deploy those assets.”

Secret integrity tests were likely to have been used in the sex industry corruption probe.

Mr Cornelius defended the use of secret integrity tests to weed out rats in the ranks.

He said only a handful of officers had been subject to the tests in recent years but 70 per cent had failed.

Mr Cornelius, a leading contender to be Victoria’s next chief commissioner, said only suspected officers were subjected to undercover tests.

“It should also be noted that every integrity test provides a clear choice to members in that each scenario is designed to allow the member to do the right thing,” he said.

“Whenever an integrity test is failed, it is as a result of a clear and intentional choice to do the wrong thing.”

The office of the SIM was set up by the State Government in 2004 to monitor the OPI.

Mr Jones’s latest annual report also had details of other secret OPI probes.

OPI director Michael Strong yesterday said he had raised his concerns directly with Mr Jones.

Mr Jones said his annual report fulfilled his statutory obligations to tell the public “within limits, what types of investigations coercive powers are being used in”.

“A draft of it went to the OPI and, as a result, some changes were made.”

In an interview with the Herald Sun, Mr Cornelius revealed more than 130 people charged by ESD in the past five years, mostly police officers, had been found guilty of serious criminal offences.

Seventeen officers have been sacked since 2003 for offences involving drugs, theft, assault, perjury and dishonesty.

ESD has proven disciplinary charges against 231 police in that time.

Corrupt Victorian cops ‘linked to illegal sex workers’
BY MICHAEL RUFFLES
25/11/2008

Unhealthy relationships between a small number of Victorian police and illegal sex workers are leading to entrenched corruption, with kickbacks and sexual favours common in inner Melbourne.

Anti-corruption officers have been investigating police who allegedly own and manage an unlicensed brothel, are associated with drug deals and have assaulted sex workers.

At least 40 reports alleged police misconduct in the sex industry from 2000 to 2007, largely in St Kilda, an area long known for its prostitution.

A report from the Office of Police Integrity issued yesterday finds the problems are more widespread than that would indicate, with complaints of police intimidation, discrimination and predatory sexual behaviour.

”Street-based sex workers have been described as the most vulnerable to repeat victimisation, aggravated and brutal sexual assaults, kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment, multiple forms of interpersonal violence and other crimes such as robbery and non-payment,” the report has found.

”Policing the sex industry creates special opportunities for police officers to engage in unethical conduct, such as taking payments in exchange for non-enforcement or abusing their position of power. Risks are further enhanced because sex workers and their clients are in weak positions to complain about police misconduct.”

The watchdog’s report comes after months of research by the Corruption Prevention and Education Unit into murky dealings between police and sex workers, focusing on the force’s training policy.

The report did not refer to specific cases of abuse or police corruption relating to sex workers, although the watchdog is investigating allegations of thefts, assaults and criminal associations by police attached to St Kilda police station.

Police from that station have been the subjects of rumours and investigations in the past.

The man who monitors the Office of Police Integrity, David Jones, wrote in a report to State Parliament in September that police were being investigated for owning and managing an unlicensed brothel, having improper or criminal associations with drug dealers and sex workers, and other crimes. Senior police have told Mr Jones in writing that the report may have tipped off the investigators’ targets.

Sen-Con Christopher Sean Vincent guilty of stealing $10,000
Shelley Hadfield
November 21, 2008

A POLICEMAN who stole more than $10,000 from a bogged car will spend his first night behind bars tonight.

Sen-Con Christopher Sean Vincent, 38, was today sentenced to 12 months’ jail, eight months of which was suspended. It means he will have to spend four months in jail.

A County Court jury earlier this month found Vincent guilty of one count of theft.

Merlene Johnstone told the jury she had $35,000 to $40,000 in her car when it became bogged on a road in Flinders in June, 2005.

She said that when she went back to the Honda Jazz hatchback with her partner to try to free it, there were two police officers around it.

Ms Johnstone and her partner had been drinking and decided not to stop at the scene, Judge Graeme Hicks said today.

When they later returned to the scene, the cash – takings from her take away food shop and pizza shop – was gone, he said.

Judge Hicks said he was satified that Vincent stole at least $10,000 from the car with colleague Anthony Imre Antal, 32.

Prosecutors alleged more than $10,000 was taken but Judge Hicks said it had not been determined how much.

Judge Hicks said that in sentencing Vincent, he took into account the hardship he would suffer in jail as a former policeman, the fact the theft was opportunistic, the fact he had lost his career, the delay in the case, the fact he had no priors and his battle with depression.

“I accept this was an opportunistic theft and it had not been pre-planned in any way,” Judge Hicks said.

“It certainly was not an example of . . . systematic police corruption.”

Vincent and Antal were doing a divisional van patrol out of Rosebud on the night of the theft and were called to Woods St in Flinders to check a report of a female loiterer.

They found the Honda sitting unattended and parked on an angle.

Antal claims he saw Vincent stuff something down his pants as he checked through the car.

The pair later split $10,000 out of the boot, Judge Hicks said.

Girl defends Oaks Day melee after aiding elderly
Anthony Dowsley and Mary Bolling
November 08, 2008

A FLEMINGTON race fan caught in the Oaks Day train fiasco claims she was manhandled by security staff and restrained by police when she stood up for elderly patrons.

Charmaine, 17, said she was accosted by security guards as agitated racegoers became dehydrated and sunburnt when they were stranded after Thursday’s races.

She said a fracas involving her boyfriend, security guards and police started when she complained after security people allegedly let attractive girls on to the crowded platform to use the toilets while others were told to wait.

Charmaine said she was not drinking on the day.

“I was sitting next to an old lady and she was getting agitated and annoyed that she had to wait out in the sun but then they let all these girls push in front of us all.

“I didn’t do anything wrong. Girls were being let on the platform while the elderly were being made to wait.

“There were heaps of drunks. We were getting sunburnt and we’d been waiting an hour or so for a train.

“It was more the security that caused it. I’ve got grazes from it. I got up and got pushed over again.”

Charmaine said her boyfriend came to her defence but was arrested and taken to Moonee Ponds police station. She said security guards were heavy-handed in the way they treated her.

“I wasn’t grabbing them or anything and they pushed me over. I didn’t go for anyone, I just said something.”

The eastern suburbs student was released soon after being escorted away from the scene and caught a bus, two trains and a taxi home — a trip taking several hours.

Police spokesman Glen Atwell said if Charmaine had any concerns about the way she was dealt with by police, then there were avenues for recourse, including contacting the Police Conduct Unit of the Ethical Standards Department.

“At this stage, there is no inquiry into this incident. Police were happy with the behaviour of the vast majority of the Oaks Day crowd,” he said.

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