Lucindale reeling in shock after fatal shooting of police officer Jason Doig

It was meant to be a normal cricket match – instead, hundreds of people fell silent to honour their local cop, killed in an act that’s shocked and stunned his home town.

• How the fatal South-East police shooting unfolded

It wasn’t planned this way. A 20-20 cricket match between Lucindale and the Adelaide Crows was supposed to be a celebration of country sport, a thank you to sponsors.

Instead several hundred people fell silent last night to mark the life and contribution of Lucindale-based police officer Brevet Sergeant Jason Doig who was killed in the line of duty at Bordertown on Thursday night.

The minute’s silence was held between innings. The timing was coincidental but the game would turn out to be a blessing for Lucindale. A chance for a community to come together. To remember ‘Doigy’, to mourn him and to start to heal.

Lucindale Football Club president Sam Graetz said Doig’s death had been a terrible shock.

“He loved the footy club, he loved the cricket club,’’ he said.

But, Mr Graetz also said it was a time for everyone in the community to look after each other.

“Everybody is going to react differently to it so make sure you talk to each other, make sure you are looking out for each other,’’ he said.

The cricket players hold a minute’s silence for Jason Doig. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dean Martin

A minute’s silence for slain police officer Jason Doig, at the 20/20 cricket match in Lucindale. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dean Martin

“It’s something you don’t expect being in a country town but he was just he was just a good, genuine community man. He was the perfect country cop,’’ he said of a man who would invite friends around for a three-course seafood meal.

Just over 600 people live in Lucindale in the state’s South-East. It’s farming country, 40km to the west of Naracoorte. The sort of place where a B-double full of hay stops on the town’s wide main street to allow the driver to dive into the cafe for a pie. Where semi-trailers carrying sheep are not an uncommon sight.

The sort of town where everyone knows the only copper, who lived behind the station on the Lucindale main street for the past 12 years. Now the town’s flags are flying at half-mast and the town op shop has closed for the day to commemorate the death of their much-loved police officer.

Flowers left in tribute outside the police station at Bordertown. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dean Martin

Notes were left with the flowers as well.

In the front bar of the Lucindale Hotel it was the main topic of conversation.

Doig was the type of cop who even earned respect in the front bar of the local pub, not something every police officer can claim.

Lucindale Hotel publican Mick Peters said Doig would go riding with the Sons of Arthritis Lucindale motorbike club on his Ducati, even though he wasn’t officially allowed to join.

“He went out of his way to help people in the community,’’ Mr Peters said.

Although there was no doubt what his job was: “If you got a speeding ticket, don’t even try to talk your way out of it.’’

Naracoorte Lucindale Mayor Patrick Ross described, with affection, Doig as a “strange cat’’.

In Lucindale, the front door of the cop shop is about 50m from the front door of the pub.

Mr Ross said Doig would often pop down to the pub, sometimes in uniform, and sometimes in street clothes, just to keep an eye on patrons and to tell them when he would be on duty.

“Jason would say, time and again, that he never ever wanted to lose one of his community members, he didn’t want them to die while he was on duty and he took that seriously,’ Mr Ross said.

Jason Doig was shot and killed in the line of duty. Picture: Supplied

“He would take people home, so of course the community has respect for a copper like that.’’

Others also talked of how Sergeant Doig would use the police van to give someone who had one or two too many a lift home. Of how he was good at sussing out potential trouble and nipping it in the bud. They said he had only been in Bordertown because he was pursuing a promotion to become a full Sergeant.

A steady stream of Lucindale residents laid flowers at the door of Sergeant Doig’s small police station Friday as the community tried to process his murder. One card was from the Lucindale Area School. “You will be remembered and sadly missed,’’ it said.

Another said: “Thank you for keeping our community safe. Doigy rest easy.’’

Vet Hayley Smith remembered Sergeant Doig as “the ideal small town cop’’.

“He just looked after everyone and if you had a problem you knew you could go and talk to him,’’ Ms Smith said.

Doig liked riding motorbikes and owned a fishing boat. He was fixing up a retirement home in the beach town of Robe and was going to retire there when he turned 60. Locals said his plan was to spend the rest of his policing career in Lucindale. That he told them the town’s police station would never close as long as he was around.

Flowers left at Lucindale Police Station in honour of 53-year-old Brevet Sergeant Jason Doig.

For Lucindale Post Office licensee Geoff Robinson, Doig was a friend as well as a policeman. Robinson is also air base commander for the CFS and worked with Doig before and after the 2020 bushfires that almost destroyed Lucindale.

“After the bushfire that impacted Lucindale in 2020, the community needed a lot of support,’’ Mr Robinson said.

“I’ve got the post office so most of the people we see every day and if there was any problems, I just spoke to him and he would go and have a chat to them,’’ he said. “If someone needed something he was there to help.’’

Mr Robinson said one of his friend’s great strengths was to manage the line between his professional life as a police officer and having a social life.

“There was a distinct line between policing and his social life. And that never got blurred,’’ he said.

Tatiara District Council Mayor Liz Goossens said the Bordertown community had been rocked by the devastating tragedy and would rally together in coming days and weeks.

“Everybody is shocked and we feel incredibly upset, not just for the family but for the wider police community and emergency services that responded to the scene,” Ms Goossens said.

Ms Goossens said injured officer Sergeant Michael Hutchinson, who was rushed to Flinders Medical Centre after the incident, was a Bordertown stalwart.

“His family grew up here, he’s well entrenched in the community,” she said.

“We’ll be there ready to support him and his wife Debbie when he comes back, ready to rally around them.”