Lindt siege inquiry: Police commander thought he’d sent officers in to deaths

THE commander who finally ­ordered police to storm the Lindt cafe has revealed he thought he was sending his ­officers to their deaths.

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THE commander who finally ­ordered police to storm the Lindt cafe has revealed he thought he was sending his ­officers to their deaths.

“For the record, it’s probably the hardest bloody decision I have had to make in 35 years of policing,” the ­detective chief superintendent told the inquest into the deadly 2014 siege.

“I was sending those police in to die.”

The officer, who cannot be identified, said he had a genuine belief the terrorist Man Monis had a bomb in his backpack and he thought everyone, including the hostages, would never come out of the cafe alive.

A tactical officer grabs a hostage as she bursts from the Lindt cafe during the siege. Picture: Adam Taylor

“I knew in my mind that there was a bomb and I was going to lose every police officer (and) the hostages,” he said.

“I shut my eyes and braced myself for the shock wave from the explosion I knew was going to come.”

The chief superintendent’s decision not to order police to assault the cafe under their emergency action (EA) plan at 2.03am on December 16 — after Monis fired his first shot when six hostages escaped — will come under scrutiny as he continues to give evidence.

Instead, he waited until 2.13am after Monis had executed cafe manager Tori Johnson.

Hostage Katrina Dawson died after she was hit by seven fragments of police bullets when the officers stormed the cafe and shot Monis dead.

The siege ended in gunfire as tactical police burst into the cafe. Picture: Bill Hearne

The chief superintendent was head of the forward command post and, in more examples of communication breakdowns in police management during the siege, he said he was never told that at 2.06am, a police sniper radioed in that Mr Johnson had been forced to his knees.

Had he known, it would have made a difference and he would have discussed with the tactical commander committing the EA at that time. Nor was he told when Monis at 2.09am fired his second shot, which went into the cafe ceiling.

The triggers for the EA were the death or serious injury, or imminent death or serious injury, of a hostage and the chief superintendent said he had been told that Monis’s first shot was high.

It hit the glass above the door through which the hostages fled.

“I’m working through a dynamic risk assessment process,” he said of what happened after that shot.

“I’m not sitting on my hands waiting for something to happen.”

The inquest continues.