Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said the public needs to get used to intense policing environment
POLICE Commissioner Mick Fuller has left the door open for new semiautomatic long-arm rifles to be in the back of every police car or slung over the shoulders of general duties police walking streets.
NSW
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POLICE Commissioner Mick Fuller has left the door open for new semiautomatic long-arm rifles to be in the back of every police car or slung over the shoulders of general duties police walking streets.
As 50 of the new Colt M4 rifles hit the streets yesterday, Commissioner Fuller told The Daily Telegraph he’d struggled with Sydneysiders stopping him in the streets saying they weren’t ready for “European style policing”, but that he’d weighed up the risks and that the “buck stops with” him for public safety.
“Difficult decisions have to be made and for mine, this was the right one,” Commissioner Fuller told The Daily Telegraph.
He revealed yesterday the new rifles, currently carried by public order and riot squad police, would be on the beat on New Year’s Eve, but “the criminals won’t know where they are”.
For now, 47 public order and riot squad police have access to the Colt M4 rifles, with the number set to rise to about 100 by next year.
Initially they will carry the rifles when there is a known threat although that could be changed to carrying them under more regular circumstances over time. Commissioner Fuller told The Daily Telegraph that any personal doubts he’d had about issuing police with the fierce weapons were put aside the moment he himself picked one up and tried it himself. He said that with no training, he’d shot the rifle with “dead point” target accuracy at a range of 100m.
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Asked about expanding the rollout so there’s a Colt M4 rifle in every boot or slung on every cop’s shoulder, Commissioner Fuller said: “It’s not a big leap to take that next step. It’s certainly possible but not in the coming months. We need to continue that conversation.”
Commissioner Fuller said that in the current environment terrorists were willing to undertake anything from simple to complex attacks.
“We’re chasing every rabbit down every hole,” he said.
The Commissioner said the public needed to get used to the more intense policing environment.
The guns would be more visible on the streets if NSW or Australia became the subject of an increased terror threat level, he said. Police were also willing to help AFP officers with the weapons at airports if a threat required the weapons, he said.
Police Minister Troy Grant said while some in the community would be “confronted” by the guns, they should also feel comforted.
“It is a reality the world we live in is changing. We wish we didn’t have to move down this path and we hope these firearms never have to be used. But it is incumbent on me as the minister to provide the police with every piece of legislation and every resource so they have the capability to keep you safe,” Mr Grant said.