Video shows terrifying knife situation through police officer’s eyes

Body camera footage has surfaced of the moment a lone Queensland policeman is approached by a man with a large knife refusing to respond to orders, showing the terrifying situations officers are confronted with on a daily basis. SEE THE VIDEO

IN the dead of night a lone police officer is called to an armed robbery at a house in Brisbane’s quiet bayside.

When he arrives, two figures are crouched down in bushes wearing motorbike helmets, one is holding a large knife.

The man holding the knife stares at the officer, then walks slowly and silently towards him with the 20cm blade at his side.

Magistrate praises drug trafficker who went on the run for seven years

Senior Sergeant Ian Smith, 44, was confronted with this terrifying scene when he was called to the Alexandra Hills house on February 14.

Senior sergeant Ian Smith said ‘a thousand things’ were running through his head when he was confronted by the man wearing a motorbike helmet.

Snr Sgt Smith has revealed that on that day he almost pulled the trigger twice, saying he feared the knife man was attempting “suicide by cop”.

“There were a thousand things going through my head,” the experienced cop said.

“One of those was that this guy wanted me to shoot him, because he kept walking towards me and never said a word.”

In harrowing body camera footage, released to Redlands Community News by Queensland Police, Snr Sgt Smith’s nerves of steel are shown in real-time as he confronts the knifeman.

“Drop the f***ing knife now, drop the knife, drop the knife now,” he yelled.

The footage gives an insight into the hair-raising situations police walk into almost every day.

It is a demand he repeats more than 16 times before bravely walking towards the man so he can taser and cuff him – all while keeping his gun trained on the other offender.

“You were seconds away from getting shot, do you understand that?” he tells him.

Later in Cleveland Magistrates Court it would be revealed that the knife man, Mark Stoker, 48, of Ormiston was drunk on cask wine and had no “ill intent” towards Snr Sgt Smith.

Stoker was sentenced to nine months jail, with immediate parole.

New figures released by Queensland Police Service show that from January until May this year, there have been 824 incidents of assaults on officers across the state – 67 more than the same period last year.

Of these figures, three officers were victims of grievous bodily harm, 79 suffered bodily harm and 320 incidents were considered serious assaults on police officers.

There have also been 30,700 resist and obstruct police officer offences during the past 12 months.

Snr Sgt Smith said all too often police are punching bags and he feared assaults were becoming “more frequent”.

“I think sometimes people think we’re expected to cop that sort of stuff …” he said.

“But we’re just ordinary people. We’ve got families we want to go home to and we shouldn’t be expected to go to work and get assaulted.”