The senior officer, Amy Scott, was conducting routine duties nearby when she was directed to head to Westfield shopping centre following reports a man was using a “massive” knife to stab shoppers.
Within minutes, the officer was inside the centre and began chasing the offender.
“This all happened very, very quickly,” the deputy commissioner of police, Tony Cooke, said.
“The officer was in the near vicinity, attended on her own, was guided to the location of the offender by people who were in the centre and she took the actions that she did, saving a range of people’s lives.”
Albanese thanked the officer, other police, first responders and the “everyday people” who reacted to help victims.
Okay, I’ll bite. I think she did her job well here. I don’t think her job should exist. I guarantee, whether intentionally or not, that she has wielded her power to make a minority’s day shittier during her career, when they didn’t deserve it. Giving that sort of power to a person, giving them that control over other people, almost always leads to corruption. A few people shining through is the exception, not the rule. Victoria police ran a scare campaign in the media last year about the decriminalisation of public intoxication. How it would cause an outbreak of other crimes, and make their job harder. But no such thing has happened. Even if you don’t believe the police should stop existing, it’s undeniable that they’ve systematically lobbied for more and more powers, which disproportionately affect minorities and the poor. Reducing those powers and shrinking the force has more benefits than not doing so or allowing their power and sizes to continue to balloon.
Edit: To be clear, the decriminalisation was directly off the back of the Royal Commission into an indigenous woman, Aunty Tanya Day’s death in custody. She was arrested for public intoxication after she fell asleep drunk on a train. Think of all the drunk footy fans you’ve seen snoozing on a train home before.
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Are you Indigenous Australian? A person of colour? LGBTQ? Homeless? A drug addict?
Because from my experiences, these groups tend to feel most comfortable when there’s a lower police presence. And I think their experiences should be considered as just as important as yours.
You’ve got to be joking, right? Personally, I’d rather not start seeing local school shootings on the evening news. It’s hard enough hearing about the ones in the States. Let alone how much more trigger-happy their cops are due to fearing that any person they interact with may have a concealed gun on them.
I’d go the opposite direction. Take guns off regular uniformed police. That’s how it is in London. De-escalate the threat of violence and bad people are likely to do the same. Wouldn’t you pick a bigger knife if you knew the people showing up in response would have guns?
I think the solutions needed are social ones. Victoria built, and is building, sobering up centres. They are staffed by nurses and social workers, and have drug and alcohol counselling available as well as being able to do referrals to other services. Increasing these sorts of services and improving social safety nets and public housing all have negative effects on the crime rate.
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me:
you:
me:
you:
I literally already said that but alright mate.
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Mate it was because you said “My solution” and then basically repeated what I had suggested 3 comments earlier as if it was your own idea. Rather than admitting on any level that I may have been right earlier. That’s not a debate, that’s just bad faith.
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This is from my first comment in this thread, I bolded the relevant section for you this time.
I don’t, but I’m willing to compromise to get there. I also do believe that disbanding the police force overnight would cause more harm than good, it’s not the path we should take. Systems need to be developed to slowly replace their functions with ones that don’t cause the same harm. I don’t know what all of those systems would look like. But more than once I’ve joked with friends that we should get little old grandma’s out there doing breathos, who’ll lovingly shame you into alcohol counselling.