Victorian police officers involved in the fatal shooting of a man suffering a mental health episode watched body-worn camera footage of the incident before writing their witness statements, the state’s coroner’s court has heard.
The man, known as XY, was shot on the Monash Freeway in Melbourne’s south-east in May 2020.
Counsel assisting the coroner Catherine Fitzgerald told a hearing this week the investigation into XY’s death found an emergency call centre operator failed to log information that he was suspected to be armed with a knife.
That meant police called to respond to the man’s mental health crisis did not know he was potentially armed.
Those officers later used body-worn camera footage to prepare their witness statements, Fitzgerald told the court.
“A number of the members who interacted with XY had activated this equipment and recorded the incident with XY that led to his death. It is apparent that different members were then given access to body-worn camera footage when preparing their witness statements,” Fitzgerald said.
“Victoria police have been requested to provide a statement outlining any [policies], procedure or training that concerns the use of such evidence in the preparation of witness statements. It is also anticipated that a witness from Victoria police will need to be called to speak to that issue.”
On the day of the shooting, assistant commissioner Bob Hill said police had attempted to negotiate with XY – who he described as “distressed” and “agitated” – before the man advanced on them with a knife.
“We tried to actually calm the male down,” Hill said.
“At a point during that course of negotiation, the male has produced a knife and advanced on the police members.
“It was during that encounter that, firstly, our police attempted a tactical withdrawal. At that point in time, the male continued the advance. There was then a non-lethal force used upon the male to stop him advancing. That was unsuccessful. Then the police resorted to lethal force, a semi-auto firearm was then discharged.”
Hill said he believed at least two shots were fired and XY was shot in the chest. He died at the scene.
Fitzgerald told the court this week that XY had no diagnosed mental illness but his mental health had been “deteriorating, largely in response to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and other personal stressors in his life”.
A previous coronial hearing heard that XY had become “paranoid and fixated with the pandemic”, stopped working, increased CCTV surveillance around his house and turned off the wifi at night because he believed it could be used to spy on him.
On the morning of 28 May last year, his second eldest child sent a text message to a staff member at their school that caused concern the family was being held against their will.
The staff member subsequently spoke on two occasions to XY’s wife. During the second conversation, his wife said that XY had just left the house in the car with a knife and told his family “this was the last time that they would see him”, Fitzgerald told the court.
The staff member phoned triple zero and told the operator XY had left the house with a knife and was threatening to kill himself. The staff member made multiple mentions of the knife to the operator from the emergency services telecommunications authority (Esta), Fitzgerald said, but a statement from the authority confirmed that information was not provided to police.
“The statement confirmed that the information regarding the knife was not accurately recorded in the event chronology by the initial call taker, and was not broadcast to attending police units subsequently by the call dispatcher,” Fitzgerald said.
“The handling of that information by Esta staff, as well as what was known or could have been known about it by attending police members, will be an area of examination at the inquest.”
The Andrews government has been criticised for failing to properly resource Esta, and the authority has struggled to deal with a surge in calls linked to the pandemic.
Marty Smyth, the Esta chief executive, resigned in October after he had reportedly lobbied for more than 40 extra staff in the recent budget.
The state’s attorney general, Jaclyn Symes, said in the days after Smyth’s resignation that the authority would be independently reviewed, but that the government would also be providing additional resources.
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org
