Sydney is still reeling after an escaped psychiatric patient turned violent this week at a Hornsby shopping centre, resulting in police gunfire. Whilst the three injured bystanders are still recovering and the attacker, Jerry Sourian, is in hospital with a gunshot wound, the public have begun questioning the necessity of guns in the desperate situations.
In response, the police have launched an independent critical incident investigation into the shooting, with Parramatta Local Area Command carrying it out. The questions mainly revolve around why other options weren’t utilised. A taser would have made the danger to the surrounding bystanders far less extreme. All four injuries out of the incident were a result of gun shots, none from the knife Sourian was wielding at the time.
Assistant Commissioner, Denis Clifford, has defended the officers, noting that they were in an extremely unpredictable life or death situation with a mentally ill man lunging towards with a weapon, but concedes that it is “alarming” that three bystanders were injured in the process of subduing Sourian.
One of the witnesses to the event, Raquel Redmond, has questioned whether the police response was in line with the level of danger present, saying they may have “overreacted”.
The fact of the matter remains that 100 people have been shot dead by police in the last 25 years, over over half being mentally ill. Police officers reportedly only receive one day of training on mental illness cases, and whether the officers involved in this shooting even undertook that is in question. Considering around 40% of police work involves cases with mentally ill people, experts are concerned that this is not enough training. A police spokeswoman has confirmed that this will be part of the investigation.
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