Helen LivingstoneSydney
The New South Wales premier has rejected criticism of the police response to the attack on a Jewish festival at Bondi Beach, saying officers acted with “bravery and integrity”.
Some witnesses have suggested police were too slow to disarm the two gunmen, who killed 15 people and injured dozens in Australia’s most famous beach on Sunday.
“There are two officers in critical care… at the moment,” Chris Minns said after sustained questioning from reporters. “They weren’t shot in the back as they were running away. They were shot in the front.”
The gunmen went on a shooting spree that lasted around ten minutes before police shot both men, killing one and critically injuring the other.
There have also been questions about whether adequate security was provided before the shooting took place.
“They shoot, shoot, change magazine and just shoot,” one witness, Shmulik Scuri, told reporters the day of the assault, adding he thought officers “froze”.
Asked about these criticisms, Minns said the “rush to conclusions” about the police operation was “disrespectful”.
“They didn’t take a backward step. They engaged the gunmen on the footbridge with handguns. The offenders had long range rifles,” Minns said.
“If there’s any suggestion that NSW Police didn’t live up to their responsibilities to the people of this state, it should be rejected because it’s not consistent with the facts.”
NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon avoided questions about how many officers had been deployed to police the event in advance. He told reporters police “regularly patrol that area as we did on that day” and that police presence was based “on the threat that exists at the time”.
Australia’s security agency has said the younger alleged gunman in the father-son duo, Naveed Akram, had come to their attention in 2019 due to his associations, but that there was nothing to suggest he was a risk of violence.
“Had there been intelligence that there was a particular threat at that location, or to that event, we may have had a different policing response,” Commissioner Lanyon said.
NSW Police established Operation Shelter after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel to investigate antisemitic hate crimes. As part of the operation, regular patrols are conducted of high-risk locations. The eastern suburbs of Sydney, including Bondi, which has a significant Jewish population, is a key focus.
Another taskforce, Strike Force Pearl, was set up later to investigate hate crimes in Sydney.
AFP via Getty ImagesDr Vincent Hurley, a former police officer who lectures on policing at Macquarie University, told the BBC it was “unrealistic” to expect police to be able to know how to react to every possible scenario.
“To respond to a mass shooting and mass killing event like that, there’s no training that can be done.”
He pointed out that police officers would have initially been reliant on calls to emergency operators “and everyone would have given them a different story”.
“Then they have to fight through traffic at Bondi Beach which is a nightmare at the best of times.”
At the scene, police would have been confronted with “absolute chaos” as thousands of people attempted to flee.
Individual officers would also have been faced with difficult choices such as whether to stop and render assistance to injured individuals or to go and look for the gunmen, decisions for which there is no protocol.
And even once the offenders had been identified, he says the risk of hurting bystanders in the crossfire would have complicated responses.
“There would be no way as a police officer, I would have drawn my firearm because all of the innocent individuals”, he added. “It’s not what you see on Netflix.”
