Alexander Kuskoff inquest: Coroner told STAR Group sniper didn’t need permission to shoot
A STAR Group sniper who fatally shot a mentally ill former scientist was not required to seek permission to shoot and had to make the decision in a split second, a coroner’s inquest has heard.
A STAR Group sniper who fatally shot a mentally ill former scientist was not required to seek permission to shoot and had to make the decision in a split second, a coroner’s inquest has heard.
On Wednesday, the STAR Group’s then deputy tactical commander told Deputy State Coroner Anthony Schapel that the officer who shot former industrial chemist Alexander Kuskoff had made his own decision to fire.
Mr Kuskoff was suffering delusions and psychosis during a stand-off with police at his Elwomple farm on the night of September 16, 2015.
The court heard Kuskoff had fired a number of shots after making repeated rambling calls to emergency services in which he declared his farm as the “state of Elwomple” and himself as the tsar.
When asked if an officer needs to ask for permission to shoot, the former deputy tactical commander, known only as DAE, replied “no”.
“The general order that we operate by is that we do not operate under instruction and we do not require permission to fire a weapon,” he said.
He said the decision to fire a weapon is made when there are “reasonable grounds necessary for the protection of life or prevention of serious injury”.
“In that circumstance the officer involved would make … his own belief of that circumstance.”
He said that decision was taken “ very seriously” and “needs to be made in a split second”.
The court has previously heard the officer fired three shots because he feared for his life and that of a colleague positioned nearby.
DAE said he spoke to the officers after Kuskoff was killed and their response was “clear, concise and to state that they had been fired upon and they had returned fire”.
He said the officers were hampered by a lack of physical cover on flat, cleared farmland on an “extremely cold” night where sound travelled easily and with intermittent radio communications.
He said officers were aware Kuskoff had previously fired randomly, including into the air, during the stand-off.
DAE told the court the primary objective of STAR Group was to safely manage the incident by ensuring Mr Kuskoff did not leave the property or the risk to the public would be “greatly increased”.
The inquest has previously heard Mr Kuskoff, 50, was shot twice from a distance of 139 metres.
It has also previously heard Mr Kuskoff would have most likely survived if he was only shot once.